


Anatomy of Defection

by CocoaBop



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, F/M, Guns, M/M, MAMA Era Powers (EXO), Mild Smut, Minor Byun Baekhyun/Oh Sehun, Minor Character Death, Multi, NCT cameos, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Past Relationship(s), Slow Burn, but with SCIENCE
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:40:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 60,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23717587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CocoaBop/pseuds/CocoaBop
Summary: 20 years after the bombing of Seoul, a new era of cold war has begun.Kai, an agent in the elite paramilitary group Security Militaire, is sent to hunt down the secretive organization's lone defector.On the other side of New Goryeo, the X Project is resurrected, bringing together a group of agents with entangled pasts.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kim Junmyeon | Suho, Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai, Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Lu Han, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Oh Sehun/Original Character(s), Oh Sehun/Reader
Comments: 91
Kudos: 45





	1. Part 1: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally starting! Seriously, I've been so excited to start posting this, so thank you for reading. The entire fic is almost done - so it WILL be finished and updated regularly. Some tags will be added later to avoid spoilers, but all major warnings should be there now.
> 
> A gallery of my art and moodboards for the fic is [here](https://cocoa-bop.tumblr.com/tagged/AofD).
> 
> A quick glossary of the five agent Classes:  
> A - Armaments  
> B - Business  
> C - Combat  
> D - Data/Digital/Devices  
> E - Espionage
> 
> X - ??

# Part 1

## Prologue

Every time Kai got close, his prey vanished.

The man he was hunting had an uncanny ability to disappear. Kai knew he was close. One time, he even found a cup of tea in the man’s hotel room, still warm.

Kai waited there for hours in case the man came back. He didn’t, but before Kai finally left, he bugged the room, just in case.

The game of cat and mouse continued northward up the peninsula. Every few days, Kai would manage to uncover his new hiding spot, using surveillance cameras and old-fashioned conversations. The man wore AI-scrambling masks that mostly deterred the cameras’ facial recognition technology, but whatever he had wasn’t perfect. Wherever the cameras picked up a glimpse of the man, Kai would find a likely convenience store or kiosk and ask the clerk. He would show them a picture: soulful eyes staring deeply into the camera, heart-shaped lips just slightly downturned, a tiny frown. Sometimes they’d recognize him and give useful information, sometimes they shook their heads and he moved on.

The chase finally reached a shelled-out city near the border. His prey had set up semi-permanent accommodations throughout New Goryeo – nests, that was what Kai called them, because unlike the spare hotel rooms, they had some semblance of inhabitation, clues to the man’s habits and preferences. Kai had already mapped several of these nests and kept close watch on them in case the man ever went back.

Here in this border town, all signs indicated another nest nearby. The dance had gone on too long – this time, Kai’s eager teeth would finally close around something. The man had been spotted here several months ago, before the chase led him south and then north again.

In the waning afternoon light, Kai silently moved down the street, a shadow in the rubble. A few people hurried to and fro, eyes downcast to watch their steps through the cracked, jagged pavement. Not far away, on the other side of the former DMZ, now thoroughly re-militarized, an explosion boomed dully. Above Kai, pigeons took off from a defunct telephone pole.

Just a bit of late afternoon fire, maybe some retaliatory shells on this side. Nothing to be worried about. Kai continued slowly down the street. Ash started to fall from the sky like gentle gray snow, a few flecks at first, then more. Maybe someone had bombed the lumber factory again, or the flammable chemical plants near the river. Kai pulled on a tight black mask that covered his nose and mouth.

He was close. It took some more searching, a few dead ends, but then, amidst the dense walls of half-abandoned courtyard houses, Kai recognized a little archway from a drone he’d sent the day before. Now, on the ground, Kai could see a long tendril of ivy winding halfway up the concrete arch. The vibrant green stood out from the gray ash beginning to blanket the city. He pulled out his gun and slid the silencer on, then slipped through the archway.

A tidy path of flat stones led him forward. He could see that the path opened up ahead into a small courtyard. Kai froze when he heard the whine of a teakettle.

In a noiseless flash, Kai covered the distance from the path to the courtyard, taking cover behind a stone statue. His gun was aimed at the table in the center of the courtyard.

The man was sitting right there, relaxed as could be, looking straight at him. Before Kai could make sense of the scene, the man spoke.

“Hello, Kai.”

His low voice stirred up Kai’s memory. It had been so long since he’d actually heard that voice. He’d almost forgotten what his voice sounded like after parsing so much silent black-and-white surveillance footage.

Kai collected himself. “Agent X-12, you are under arrest for unlawful defection. If you resist, my orders are to recover your body.”

D.O. just stared at him. Those dark, unblinking eyes always got under Kai’s skin. The whistling teakettle began to rattle.

“Did you hear me?” Kai advanced towards him. The man appeared to be unarmed, but Kai gripped the gun in front of him anyway.

As he neared, D.O. spoke. “Yes, of course I heard you. Several blocks away.”

Kai knew that. Knew it was how D.O. had been avoiding him. That in this game of speed against detection, his prey’s skill was greater.

“Then why didn’t you run?”

If D.O. was at all nervous about the gun coming towards his face, he didn’t show it.

“The chemical ash will hurt my plants. I have to take care of them,” he said matter-of-factly. He lifted a hand and gently brushed a fleck of ash from the tongue of the orchid on the table next to him. “Do you want some tea?”

And just like that, all of Kai’s plans changed in an instant.


	2. Neon/Pink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a long undercover assignment to capture New Joseon stealth technology, Agent D-C-4 gets distracted by a mysterious pink-haired boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a heads up that parts of this fic are written from the 2nd person POV, representing an OC (Agent D-C-4). I tagged for both of these things, but also wanted to make a note here in case it's not for you. 
> 
> If these things are not for you but you still want to read more (bless you), skip ahead to Part 2, which is Chanyeol's POV (3rd person).

Your glass was almost empty. You swirled around the dregs of whiskey and kept waiting for something to happen. That was your job, after all – though before you became an agent, you never would have guessed that it entailed so much waiting. 

To pass the time, you continued making the rounds in your peripheral vision. Doorway – not much traffic. The other girls – still laughing in their booth, carefree and neon and tipsy. The creepy old men in the corner – still staying in their respective corners. The bartender – deep in conversation at the end of the glowing countertop.

It was 2300 hours, an hour to midnight, and though you knew things could start to happen soon, you felt surprisingly calm. When you were first starting out on field assignments, you would be wound up tight inside at this point. You had hated the juxtaposition of endless waiting and sudden bursts of action. Tonight, though, you were numb. It was a respite from ambition, from yearning. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it was a bad thing – maybe it meant you’d given up hope.

Your dreams had gone dormant as of late, leaving only calm. You had finally come to terms with never knowing what had happened to him… though the thought of him still stung a tiny bit. 

Better not to think. Let it rest. So you did another careful scan of the room. Doorway, booth, corner, bar. 

The music pulsed monotonously in the club. You were glad it wasn’t too loud. Any sort of blaring music or sudden noise reminded you too much of home. Or rather, of how the city where you’d grown up had been subjected to noise torture, those agonizing nights of ceaseless propaganda broadcasts in Chinese, the strange, diabolical sounds the occupying military would play over the citywide speakers when you least expected it. 

You set your hidden earpiece to noise-canceling mode, though that only covered one ear. You tried to casually rest your hand against the other ear. Waiting. Watching. Swirling an almost-empty glass.

“Can I buy you another drink?”

A smooth voice interrupted your sip-and-scan routine right as somebody slid onto the barstool next to yours. You sized up the newcomer, a slim boy with wavy pink hair falling into his puppy-dog eyes. Your first thought was that he was too attractive to be a john, those paunchy old perverts who frequented this club – maybe he was selling his wares here too, then. 

In that case, a free drink couldn’t hurt. You shrugged and finally finished off the whiskey, watching him out of the corner of your eye. But would this interfere with the assignment at all?

“Two gin and tonics, please,” the boy said, waving a bill at the bartender to get her attention. 

“You’re not even going to ask me what I want to drink?” You tried not to grimace – at least more alcohol wouldn’t affect you, not with the dehydrogenase pills you had to take during the assignment. 

“No, because I’ll finish yours if you don’t,” he replied boldly. 

The bartender slid your drinks over.

“Cheers then.” You clinked your glass with his, and noticed his long, graceful hands. 

He caught you staring, and waggled a finger at you. “Are you checking out my hands?” 

You blushed at him observing your observation, and swiveled around in your seat so you could better keep an eye on the room. “Should I be?” you asked. “Are you a famous hand model or something?” You prayed for a swift end to this awkward conversation. 

“Oh yes, definitely,” he said, grinning mischievously and fluttering his fingers around his face. “I have the most sought-after hands in all of New Goryeo!”

You fished for a response. Witty banter was not a skill of yours, but it probably would come naturally to the call girl you were supposed to be. “Well, I’m glad hand modeling pays well enough for you to buy me a drink.” 

“That, and other things. So, what are you up to here?” he asked. 

“Working.” You smiled blandly, trying to seem less awkward and more vacuous. You actually weren’t lying, but your ludicrous, fluorescent outfit meant he would assume you were up to a different kind of work, given the reputation of this club. “Yourself?” You scanned the room again while you talked with this mild distraction. 

“Just checking out the scene. Anyway, I like to meet new people.” His laugh was warm and lively. “You never know who will pop up in a place like this!” 

“Hmm.” Actually, you thought you knew exactly the kind of people who popped up in this scuzzy beachside club on the regular. But you didn’t say anything more because the girls had just gotten up from their booth and headed to the dance floor. 

He must have followed your eyes again because he leaned in and said, “Want to dance?”

His mischievous smile and open hand made you raise your eyebrows. Was this allowed? Would it be in character? It was your first undercover assignment, and to be honest, you had no idea what to do. 

But it had been a very long time since you had danced. And the bait had just moved to the dance floor. You had to admit he looked both cute and harmless. His oversized white button-down shirt seemed to envelop his slim frame, and he was definitely putting the puppy-dog eyes to use.

To your own surprise, you nodded.

In fact, you had just made it through an incredibly tedious three weeks of doing nothing but camp out at the brothel in Sokcho, posing as a new girl. Your up-front payment to the madam had been generous enough that she let you have a room in the back and choose your clients. The budget for field assignments was never an issue while working for Security Militaire, so all of your “clients” were just other staff, mostly older paper-pushers who were only too happy to go undercover for a night. They all made the same dirty jokes to you, maybe even hoping you’d act out your role all too well, but you strictly kept to the far corner and ignored them until their time was up. You had quickly grown sick of their leering gazes, but it wasn’t really something you could report to the higher-ups. New Goryeo was new in name only, after all. The same patriarchal foundation was still there, even at supposedly cutting-edge companies like Security Militaire with “global talent” and an “elite female workforce”. The irony of having to pose as an escort for your most high-profile assignment yet was not lost on you. 

By day, you’d lounged with the girls and tried to collect useful intelligence amidst their chatter. They were sweet but intense. Many of them were refugees from Southeast Asia, where China and New Goryeo were fighting their proxy wars. You could only listen to so many dreams of rags-to-riches glory and stories about back-home boyfriends – and debts – before feeling a bit depressed. 

Therefore it was not an unwelcome gesture for the pink-haired boy to take your hand and guide you to the dance floor. The girls shrieked their welcome but were too drunk to pay you much attention. The johns hadn’t approached them yet, and your targets had yet to reveal themselves, so as far as you could tell it was just a sweaty mass of thrill-seeking college kids and regular lowlifes dancing to the same beat. You felt the summer breeze on your skin, humid and salty from skimming over the ocean before it blew through the open patio doors of the club. 

He was a very good dancer. You couldn’t believe you were actually having fun for the first time on this whole assignment. Thank god he wasn’t grinding on you like a horny teenager. No, he was twisting and spinning and snapping his slender fingers and generally looking like a million won or whatever his going rate was. You couldn’t tell if he liked you or just wanted your money – which meant he was good at his job, if that’s what he was. His smile was blinding, and you couldn’t help but grin too. So this was why the college kids liked dancing. 

A couple of the girls you were keeping an eye on came over to dance with you. They didn’t seem to know your pink-haired dance partner – maybe he wasn’t a local escort boy after all. One of the girls, Jiwoo, clasped your hands as she danced. “Isn’t this so much fun?” she giggled. “Ugh, I wish the madam would let us come here more than once a month. I’ve met some really spendy clients here!” She rubbed her fingers together and winked at you conspiratorially. 

“Let’s just have fun and not worry about work tonight,” you replied, shouting over the music. You didn’t know if they’d ever be so lighthearted again, not if the intelligence Security Militaire had given you was correct. But that same intelligence had indicated there was only a 50/50 chance it would happen tonight, and if you were honest with yourself, you’d rather stay undercover at the brothel another month than see the girls get hurt tonight. 

“You’re so cute,” Jiwoo smirked. “Only new girls don’t care about money yet.” Another girl, Chom, grabbed you and twirled you, and maybe the alcohol was getting through a tiny bit, because you actually laughed as the room spun. 

An arm reached around your waist and steadied you, and the pink-haired boy pulled you back. You swayed to the music, automatically looking out past him to keep an eye on the crowd. 

“Hey,” he said. “Look at _me_.” His eyes flashed, no longer puppy-like. You were startled by his sudden intensity, but kept dancing to play the part. Or was it just a part? You tried to tell yourself this was nothing more than an in-character way to pass the night until something happened. If anything happened. 

He leaned in closer. “I just need to know – have we met before?” You could hear his voice clearly as he murmured into your right ear, the one without the earpiece.

“That’s… a really cheesy line,” you replied, trying to keep things light. You knew for certain you’d never seen him before. As an agent recruited from abroad, you basically knew no one outside of Security Militaire. 

“I’m serious. I feel like I’ve met you somewhere. C’mon…” You felt slightly unnerved by his change in demeanor, but convinced yourself that he was just trying to solicit your business or have some fun. 

His one hand was on your hip, the other brushing through your hair. You felt the one hand sliding lower, and were you just being paranoid, or was the other hand grazing down the back of your neck? 

Quickly but not too quickly, you spun around and grabbed both his hands, continuing to dance. Your heart was beating a little faster. Any lower and he could have discovered the knife in the sheath around your leg, or the wiring laid tight against your spine. You’d spent many a night in the brothel sewing the necessary seams into the impractical outfits the Equipment Department had issued you so they would be at least somewhat useful for the tactical gear you needed for this assignment.

“Nervous?” he laughed.

“You should keep your hands more to yourself,” you said sharply.

“Don’t lie, you just wanted to touch them.” 

Before you could think of a retort, you saw what you had been waiting for. Everything slowed down. All those long days and tedious nights, the moments draining through the bottom of an almost-empty glass. You saw the faces of the men your unit had been monitoring for weeks before you went to Sokcho and the brothel. Their features were seared into your brain. _Those scumbag New Joseon thugs_ , your officer had called them. _Just North Koreans with new tech and the same old nightmare tactics_. They were talking to the girls and gesturing over their shoulders. 

You were calm. Ready. You let go of the boy’s hands. “I have to go now.” 

“So soon? I was having a good time.” The intensity had fallen away and he was back to the puppy-dog eyes and lilting grin. 

“I’ll see you next time,” you said, though now you knew there wouldn’t be a next time. _Thanks for making the waiting a little easier_ , you thought. Without looking back, you merged seamlessly into the neon knot of girls as they moved out towards the patio and onto the beach with the thugs. 

Stay calm. You knew what was coming next. The trap within a trap had been laid weeks, months ago. It was just a matter of executing everything perfectly. Stay sharp. And calm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think so far? We will get back to Kaisoo eventually, but here is where the story really begins...


	3. Flare

A bonfire on the beach, with booze and drugs and those classic Instagram-bait sparklers. That was what the thugs had claimed was just outside. You started approximating the giggling and stumbling of the three other girls who’d followed them out, kicking off your shoes like they did once the group reached the sand. Those stupid platforms were such a liability anyway. Damn the Equipment Department – couldn’t they have issued you more practical footwear? 

Of course, their bonfire was a little further down the beach, the thugs said. _Just a little further, come on, ladies!_ It was straight out of the North Korean baddie textbook from the 1970s and 1980s. Isolate the hapless victims, then… 

The group stopped at a lone pier. You could see other bonfires and revelry further down the beach, closer to the bar. Jiwoo was cozying up to one of the thugs, probably trying to assess his assets. The other girls were lighting and playing with the sparklers. 

“Take a picture of us!” shrieked Chom, thrusting her tablet at you. “I got it,” said one of the thugs, smoothly taking the tablet out of your hands. The sparklers were momentarily blinding, the contrast between light and dark too much for your eyes to adjust to quickly. You tried to step back, but a rough hand pushed you forward. You saw the men offering colorful pills to the girls, who popped them like candy. 

“Chom, wait…” you started.

A popping sound like gunfire exploded in your ears, and you almost dropped into a protective crouch, fighting against the wave of fear. The deafening cracks were followed by whoops and laughter. Someone was setting off firecrackers and small fireworks further up the beach, and club-goers were running towards the display. 

You saw a flash of pink hair among them. _Be careful, Puppy-Dog Eyes…_ you thought. The girls were laughing in delight and pulling out their tablets to capture the unexpected show. 

“Hey, where did… my… tablet go?” Chom was slurring and stumbling into you. You tried to catch her, steady her, though she was a lot taller than you. Was it just alcohol, or had they given her some fast-acting drug?

Then things started happening quickly. The men started yanking the tablets out of the hands of the girls and prying away their purses. The girls started to protest, at which point rolls of black tape appeared and the men started covering their mouths. You had only seen five men when the group left the club, but now there were more. Too many. They were coming off a small boat bobbing in the black water at the pier. Jiwoo was unleashing her piercing scream when a man pressed a cloth to her face. She fell limply into his arms. The girls were starting to realize this wasn’t just a robbery, and instinctive panic was setting in, but nobody was going to notice the commotion while the firecrackers up the beach intensified. 

“Don’t fight, or we’ll fucking break you,” growled one of the men. Someone wrenched away your purse, while another thug grabbed your hands and tied them behind your back. Black tape was slapped across your mouth. You didn’t want to test if your prophylactics could block whatever inhalant had knocked Jiwoo out, so you only resisted minimally. 

You half-walked, half-stumbled towards the boat as the men roughly herded the group towards it. Jiwoo was slung over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 

“Get in,” someone ordered. You and Chom dropped gracelessly into the boat, but the other girl started to kick and drag her feet. A hulking blonde man clocked her in the temple and shoved her into the boat. “Move,” he rasped in heavily accented Korean. 

The girls huddled towards you, whimpering, as Muscle Man threw a dark blanket over all of you. The motor of the boat started, and you felt rocking as it moved out from the pier. You rubbed your ankles together until you were able to flip the small switch that activated the tracker on your anklet. Nothing to do now but wait and hope the signal wouldn’t be blocked until you were close enough to the bigger boat that you knew would be waiting out there in the dark water.

You tried to slow your breath – between the tape and the heavy blanket weighing you down, it wasn’t exactly easy breathing. To distract yourself from queasy fear, you tried to guess where Muscle Man was from. Out of necessity, after the brief but bloody war between South and North Korea, South Korea – now New Goryeo – had welcomed and cultivated foreign talent from allied areas for its security and military affairs. That’s how you’d wound up in this whole predicament in the first place, young and desperate – but you were surprised to see historically insular New Joseon hiring foreign muscle now.

Breathe. One, two, three. You reviewed the plan for when you arrived at the stealth boat and tried to think calming thoughts. You’d been so calm in the bar, even when you knew there was about a fifty-fifty chance that the thugs would make their move tonight. Right. You’d been calm because you’d made peace with the thought of never seeing him again. 

Him. You thought impassively about the first time you’d met him. Not far into your training. Just another cadet at the academy. You’d never really noticed him until, BAM, you collided with him while changing formations in a military exercise. Your face thudded into his broad chest and he held you still for a moment. Shoving him backwards, you looked up at his somber face and regretted that it had been violence that brought you together. 

A choppy wave jolted you out of your reverie. There were muffled shouts, and a man shoved the blanket aside and started tying your feet as well. 

“Hey, these girls look real nice,” the man cackled, and you saw a disconcerting gap in his wicked smile. He ran his hands up Chom’s leg after tying her feet together and she whimpered even more. You made a noise of protest. 

“What, you want some too?” he growled. His eyes fell on your front-zippered top. Really, damn that Equipment Department. You could practically read his mind. He reached one grubby hand out. You waited until he was looming over you, then slammed your head up into his chin in a vicious headbutt. _Have another gap, fucker._

“Whore!” the man shouted, stumbling backwards. 

“Lee, stop messing with the girls. Just be quiet,” someone hissed from the front of the boat. The gap-toothed man spat and grumbled, but backed away. 

The boat skimmed over the waves. You and the other girls were still partially covered by the blanket, and you used the opportunity to hunch your shoulders forward until a little sharp hook popped out from the bottom edge of your top. Then you arched your back the other way, brought your bound hands up to the hook, and began sawing away in tiny movements. Your shoulders hurt, but it was working. Chom and the other girl were too distraught and high to notice, and Jiwoo still seemed to be out cold. 

You sensed you were nearing the stealth boat as the little motorboat began to slow. You’d studied as much about the stealth tech as was available before the assignment, but were surprised that you still couldn’t see it this close up. It was a moonless night, and the light and noise of the beach were far away now. 

“Steady… one klick out…” The men up front were moving around, preparing gear. You’d managed to saw through two strands of rope and felt that the whole knot would give with one good yank at this point. You were lucky they’d only used rope. You tucked the hook back in and clasped the sawed-through rope in your hands to conceal your work. 

Wow, you still couldn’t see the boat. It must be fully armored in the stealth tech, more than had been expected. This was going to be a huge acquisition for Security Militaire – if everything went according to plan. 

Finally, the prow of the larger boat loomed into sight. The ocean water barely reflected off of its blacker-than-black hull. Lights on the deck seemed to bob in mid-air. You guessed maybe half a dozen more men were on the ship.

The men were lowering some kind of ladder to the smaller boat, and the blanket was taken away. Muscle Man grabbed you and hoisted you over his shoulder as you struggled weakly. The other girls were similarly lifted and carried up to the boat. They then threw you unceremoniously onto the deck near the stern of the boat, and you and the other girls stumbled and fell into a pile of dirty gear. You again felt lucky that they’d left you all on the deck. 

You heard orders and things moving about. The engine of the larger boat started, and you could feel it lurching forward. 

But your luck didn’t hold. “That’s the whore who hit me,” you heard someone snarl. 

Shit. You tried to look as groggy and weak and harmless as possible. 

“How could she hit you, idiot? We tied her up.” 

“She used her head or something. Bitch.” You felt Gap Tooth grab your hair and pull you up, only to fling you down to the deck again, hard. You tried to land on your shoulder and roll a bit to spread out the impact, but stars blurred in your vision. Ouch. The deck was rough. You curled up on your side and glared up at Gap Tooth with pure malice.

“Hah, I believe it,” said the other man. “Should’ve picked the one that can’t fight back, you damn pervert.” 

Gap Tooth’s eyes fell on Jiwoo’s limp body. The boat was moving pretty quickly – maybe two klicks out from where it had started. You didn’t want to watch this. But you weren’t ready to do anything that might mess up the assignment either. 

Gap Tooth advanced towards Jiwoo. The other girls cringed away. Damn, if you dropped the flare now, it might be too soon for the capture unit to calibrate the trajectory from when your ankle signal went dark. 

Fuck it, you thought. Security Militaire drones should be able to draw a straight line. As Gap Tooth leaned towards Jiwoo, you yanked one hand out of the ropes and reached into the back of your top, pulling out the small flare sewed into an inner pocket. You wriggled backwards towards the railing, and dropped the flare over the deck into the ocean. Activation by immersion in water in three, two, one… A tiny popping noise and a small flare of red light were all that indicated it had worked. You closed your eyes and went limp and prayed no one had noticed. 

“What was that?” someone elsewhere on the boat yelled. 

“What?” 

“I saw it too.” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“I didn’t see anything.” 

“Where?” 

Damn. Several men ran to the stern. At least Gap Tooth jumped up and ran over as well. 

“Could be some kind of flare.” 

“I don’t know, maybe something fell out of the boat.” 

“It glowed.” 

“What the hell?”

“Shut up,” ordered one man with a full beard, maybe the leader. “Get your weapons. Not taking any chances.” The man was scanning the horizon for boats. _Nice try, Eagle Eyes_ , you thought. _But that’s not where they’ll be coming from._

Shouts and footsteps echoed out as the men scrambled below deck to get their gear. Amidst the clamor, your earpiece started picking up the soft whirr of a military helicopter. Not as loud as a regular helicopter, but still. You didn’t allow yourself any feeling of relief at that sound. Yes, the capture unit was coming, but so many things – even more things – could go wrong at this point. Stay calm. 

The men would hear it soon. They were armed to the teeth with all kinds of guns – AK-47s, M16 variants, even something that looked like a relic from the first Korean War. Shit, they were really well stocked. With the stealth tech scrambling communications, you had no way to warn the capture unit at this point. Prior intelligence had estimated eight men, lightly armed, but this was fifteen men with a veritable trove of contraband firearms. Eagle Eyes was now scanning the sky. 

The thumping of the helicopter became plainly obvious. Eagle Eyes started shouting orders and some of the men aimed torch beams overhead. “Port! Port!” he screamed as the light caught panels of metal in the sky. The men opened fire on the helicopter as it lowered and neared the boat. No one was going to get out of the helicopter against this barrage. There was no return fire from the helicopter – the boat was the prize, and everyone knew it. 

But then you felt a whoosh of air wash over you. You looked back over your shoulder. Two helicopters. This one was closer, and quieter. The door was already open, and you could see someone hanging out of the frame of the helicopter, lowering a rappelling line with efficient movements. Their back was ramrod straight. 

It couldn’t be. 

But it was. Of all the people they could have sent. Despite the helmet and the plated armor, you’d recognize that frame anywhere. Even after two years. That long-limbed symmetry.

It was him.

Sehun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The EXOs are coming!!
> 
> Feedback appreciated ^^


	4. The Helicopter

Now there was definitely no way you were going to be able to remain calm. There were supposed to be three helicopters that simultaneously arrived, filled with agents that would quickly overwhelm a small crew of eight men. Except as things turned out, there were two helicopters, fifteen thugs armed with big-ass guns, and Sehun. Where was the third helicopter? A million new scenarios flashed through your head, but your feet were still tied and the black tape was smothering your mouth. Coming under heavy fire, the larger helicopter veered up and away, sending harsh gusts roaring across the deck of the boat. Despite the chaos, a few men had noticed the smaller helicopter approaching from starboard. Worse, they were setting up some kind of stand for an anti-aircraft weapon.

Two figures were already rappelling down from the second helicopter and one was crouching in the cabin. You saw the crouching figure – you thought it was Sehun – hoist a weapon to his shoulder and take aim at the boat. Was that a modded rocket launcher? An Mk 153 like that could destroy an armored tank. But the boat was the prize… and more importantly, was he about to blow you up?

The boat veered away from the smaller helicopter, swinging you around to face the incoming agents. You were close enough now to see clearly that it was Sehun aiming at the boat. You would have seen his face if not for the dark, reflective panel of his visor. You felt the seconds slow to a crawl. It didn’t make sense. His hand moved to the trigger. Surely he wasn’t going to blow up the whole boat. Surely he knew you were onboard. And even if it didn’t matter to him that it was you specifically, just knowing a Security Militaire agent was embedded meant he shouldn’t readily resort to chaotic explosives.

If it had been three years ago, you would have known exactly what he was doing. You would have known his thoughts before he even moved. You would have trusted him even if he’d put a gun to your head. That was what it meant to be a team.

You stared straight at him and dared him to shoot.

A faint light flared out behind his shoulder and you heard – felt – the whoosh of the projectile as it shot towards the stern of the boat. Something exploded out with a pop and you heard clattering, then crunching, grinding, and whirring as whatever it was – a weighted net of some kind – was dragged into the outboard motors. The boat jerked and slowed.

Sehun’s helicopter was whirring close by overhead. The two agents came lower to the deck, taking fire. The lower agent had a large bulletproof shield and was firing back. Fortunately, the missile launcher the thugs were setting up had gotten swept away by the net. The higher agent swung out on the rappelling line and went flying towards the front deck as the thugs scattered. Insane – that was a double Combat Class agent if you’d ever seen one. You couldn’t discern much from the back of the boat, but judging by the screams and curses, you figured the ballsy agent had somehow made it onto the front deck. But now you saw more thugs swarming out of the bottom of the boat and heading towards the front.

Then you saw a third figure rappelling down to the boat. Sehun.

You tried to set aside any unproductive resentment as you struggled with the rope around your feet. The agents were vastly outnumbered, but if you blew your cover and joined the fray now, you were giving up a potentially useful advantage. Not to mention you had no armor or weapons besides the dinky knife strapped to your thigh.

But you couldn’t just do nothing. Nobody was paying attention to you and the girls yet, so you slipped a hand out, pulled out the knife, and started sawing the rope off of your feet.

Shouts, splashes, and gunfire from the front of the boat. The first helicopter was back and again taking fire. You saw some of the thugs cowering down in the hold and a few at the lower deck of the stern behind you. You were just about to shrug off the ropes and go stupidly tackle someone when there was a shout and a pause in the gunfire. Some of the thugs came stumbling from the front of the boat, trying to find a hiding place behind the gear and the limp bodies of the girls next to you.

“Surrender, we surrender!” Eagle Eyes, the presumed captain, was also coming your way, walking backwards with his hands up. Agents from the first helicopter were rappelling down to the front of the boat. It was over. Then from behind Eagle Eyes you saw Sehun, his visor up and his eyes burning. His assault rifle was in the captain’s stomach, pushing him back.

Then Sehun saw you and stopped.

“I’ll shoot them!” A hoarse voice rang out. Gap Tooth had appeared out of nowhere, and was wildly waving a pistol at you. His legs were bloodied. Chom and the other girl were crying and shaking, but Gap Tooth stepped over you and pointed the gun at your head. He dragged Jiwoo’s limp body in front of him as a shield. “Let us go, or I’ll kill her. She’s with you, huh? Didn’t take the drugs, huh?” He was raving.

“Stand down, Lee,” the captain barked, but the gun barrel was still coming straight at your face.

“We’ll give up the girls if that’s what you want! We were just taking them for a ride.” Just as the gun was about to press into your forehead, you kicked out at whatever part of his leg he was bleeding from while simultaneously yanking his arm past your head. The gun discharged into the deck behind you as he fell heavily onto you, screeching. Now that your limbs were free, you were able to quickly disarm him. You'd only tried because you knew he was injured and probably drunk.

Now the girls were looking at you with fear and confusion. You knew you must look insane – dirtied, bruised, enraged, black tape still slapped across your mouth and a gun in your hand. You lowered the gun and glanced back at Sehun.

He hadn’t moved, rifle still aimed straight at the captain. “Clear,” he shouted, making a signal with his free hand. “Commence boarding. Secure the boat. Targets are standing down.”

Agents from the larger helicopter quickly boarded the ship and started putting the thugs in restraints. As you turned to the girls and fumbled for your knife to cut them loose, you felt Sehun’s hand on your shoulder. He pulled you up. You winced. You’d fallen hard on that shoulder.

“Are you OK?” he asked urgently. You reached up to remove the tape across your mouth when he yanked it off all in one go.

“ _Fuuuuck_.” You couldn't help but curse in English.

“Are you OK??” he repeated, louder and more urgently.

“I’m fine. I was just about to get the tape, you didn’t have to… ” He probed at your shoulder as you put a hand to the smarting skin on your face.

“What happened to your shoulder?”

“It’s nothing.” You glared at each other. More than two years, and you couldn’t think of anything to say. Typical. Your mind was still reeling. You had assumed he was either doing something top-secret or had died in the line of duty, or both.

A woman’s voice rang out over a loudspeaker. “D-C-4, Beta crew, depart on the arriving boat. Alpha will sweep and secure.” You could hear sirens approaching – another boat had arrived.

“Sehun – I mean, Agent C-A-94.” You turned back to the girls. “They – ”

“Come on,” said Sehun. “We have to go. They’ll be fine. The agents will see to them and they’ll be detained for a few days.”

“No, they need immediate medical attention. Jiwoo, the one in the blue dress, was knocked out by some inhalant. They’ve had alcohol, and maybe some kind of tranquilizer administered orally.”

He looked at your stubborn expression and sighed. “Fine. Go get on the boat.” You wanted to protest, say you could help, but he started yelling instructions to the agents on the ship. _Who died and put you in charge?_ you thought, just one of the many questions swirling through your head. But you were trained to follow orders, and it did seem like he was in charge.

As you moved to board the second boat, you saw the crumpled body of the first agent, the one who had been providing cover from the rappelling line. Your gut twisted. Could they be…? Their bulletproof armor hadn’t been designed for taking fire from that angle. The ballsy Combat Class agent that had leapt from the line and probably saved you all was tending to the first agent, though their leg looked injured as well.

It was always a risk in this line of work, but there wasn’t supposed to be a high chance of casualties on this assignment. The third helicopter was supposed to have been there. Yes, the stealth boat was secured, but you had a sinking feeling that you had messed up somehow. Exhaustion started to set in, the inevitable physical and mental toll of the past few hours – no, weeks. Fatigue, confusion, and guilt. Of course, the sudden reappearance of Sehun didn’t help.

You were running through other outcomes of the assignment, things you could have done better, when the same voice rang out, this time without amplification.

“D-C-4, board here.” The other boat had pulled alongside this one, and a compact woman extended a small bridge. “Officer Kwon!” you cried out in relief. You'd known her since she was Agent C-A-22, the shortest instructor at the academy but almost always the toughest. She’d treated you fairly when you were in training, and you had been pleased when she became your handler for this assignment.

“You’ve done well, agent. We’ll debrief later.” She eyed your disheveled state and passed you her jacket. “Clean up and wait in the hold here until the crew of the Beta helicopter is ready to depart.” She clapped you on the shoulder – ouch – and pulled you past herself onto the second boat.

You stumbled towards the cabin, desperate to clean up a bit and rest.

But as soon as you stepped into the tiny cabin of the boat, you saw someone already sitting there, elbows on his knees, slender hands pushing through his pink hair.

He looked up when you walked in.

“You,” you breathed in disbelief.

“Hey,” he said quietly, standing up.

“You’re… an agent…?” you spluttered.

“Yeah. Surprise?” He smiled weakly.

This assignment just kept getting worse. What if he could have helped you, somehow? Had he had better intelligence on the group of men who had taken you and the girls? It was your fault two agents were seriously injured. The last thing you needed was to realize your two seconds of fun in the club had been in on this whole disaster too. You felt your face growing hot with embarrassment and anger.

You tried to move past him towards the bathroom, but he was blocking your way.

“Hey, can we…”

Before he could say anything further, you slapped him across the face. Not a blow, but hard enough. Your cheap costume jewelry left a thin red line down his cheekbone. “I probably deserved that,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek ruefully.

You shoved past him into the bathroom and sank down onto the floor. Somebody else’s blood was drying on your legs. You were barefoot, and your mouth was red and raw from the tape. You wanted to cry.

You didn’t emerge from the bathroom until the boat had docked back in Sokcho and Officer Kwon requested all personnel to disembark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback appreciated ^^


	5. Shadow/Glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder to read the tags!

The debrief took place in a dingy hotel room, one in a block that had been converted into headquarters for the assignment. When you arrived at the hotel, you found your belongings had already been collected from the brothel. Officer Kwon had gently suggested you take a few minutes to rest and change clothes before meeting her for the debrief. 

Now, you wished you’d had longer to rest. The overly bright mission control space was still just a cramped hotel room, and you found yourself in uncomfortably close quarters with, of all people, Sehun and the pink-haired agent. Officer Kwon had called the three of you in for the debrief. It turned out that Sehun had been leading the unit in charge of capturing the stealth boat, while the pink-haired agent had somehow been playing a role with the Espionage unit. Because of course nobody had bothered to tell you these particular people were essential to your weeks-long assignment. 

Officer Kwon was rattling off details of the assignment to her director, who was calling in from Shin-Seoul. Despite the bright lights in this room, the director’s office appeared dark and cavernous onscreen. His intense, shadowy visage was projected across one of the large displays that had been installed in the hotel room. Sehun was pacing back and forth in the tiny room, occasionally interjecting in the conversation. You had taken the only armchair in the room, and the pink-haired agent was sitting awkwardly on the bed and twiddling his thumbs.

Now the director was questioning Sehun. “The Gamma helicopter never reached the target. Why is that?” The director’s low, soft voice was slightly menacing.

Sehun furrowed his brow. He seemed older now, shoulders broader but heavier with responsibility. “They weren’t able to trace the correct trajectory in time. By the time we got there, the stealth boat was scrambling our ability to contact Gamma.” 

“But you all received the same data from Agent D-C-4’s signal and flare. So either two helicopter crews got lucky despite garbage coordinates, or one helicopter crew was too dumb to work with perfectly fine coordinates.”

Sehun didn’t say anything.

“Let me speak to Agent D-C-4,” the director said tonelessly.

“Sir.” You moved into the camera’s line of vision.

“According to the data I saw, you dropped the flare earlier than planned. Explain.”

“Sir, I… I believed there was an imminent threat. I dropped the flare to hasten the arrival of the capture unit.” You tried to choose your words carefully.

“An imminent threat to yourself?”

You swallowed. “An imminent threat to the floaters. The girls who were kidnapped.”

“Agent, that is not an actionable cause for deviating from the plan. With the third helicopter to display additional force, there is a possibility the stealth boat crew might have stood down without exchanging fire.” Or injuring the two Beta crew agents. You had already run through this in your head, but it still stung to hear it out loud. 

“Sir, the girls played a vital role in the assignment…”

“Bait is bait,” the director sneered. Sehun and Officer Kwon were avoiding looking at you, but under the shadow of his hair, the pink-haired agent’s face hardened for a moment.

The director continued. “Agent X-4, you encountered D-C-4 earlier in the night. Please comment on the agent’s performance.” You looked over at the pink-haired boy, your mind reeling. X? That wasn’t an agent Class you had heard of. Maybe some weird Espionage shit. And what was he going to say? That you both had _danced_ together? 

X-4 stood up. “Sir, Agent D-C-4 appeared prepared. I scanned her gear to ensure it was operational for the assignment. The floaters clearly trusted her.” He sat down on the bed again. 

Several tense seconds passed. Finally, the director spoke. “Very well. This will be further investigated once we receive data from the Gamma crew. Agent D-C-4, you are dismissed.” No one else moved, so you stood and made your way to the door. As you passed X-4, he flashed you a crooked smile.

You collapsed into a chair in the lobby as other Security Militaire staff swarmed around. You hadn’t realized what a big assignment this had been. For every SM agent, there were at least a dozen civilian employees, from techs to medics and engineers, who helped keep the paramilitary organization running smoothly. Yes, even the cursed Equipment Department. And plenty of these non-agent employees were onsite tonight, helping sweep up all evidence of the operation in Sokcho. You knew you had been the linchpin of the assignment, kept in the dark about key details for good reason, but all you wanted now was to disappear into obscurity forever. 

You sighed, reflecting on everything that had gone wrong that night. You hadn’t known about X-4’s Espionage unit, though that could have been the point. You felt embarrassed about losing your temper and slapping him. Still, you didn’t really understand his behavior. He’d been so charming – apparently to covertly check your gear? You could think of several other ways to do that. As for Sehun – your brain was too overloaded right now to even process anything other than relief that he was alive. 

Before long, Officer Kwon and the other two agents came out. “Return to Seorak barracks, X-4 and X-94,” you overheard her saying. Since when had Sehun, a Combat/Armaments Class agent, been changed to this mysterious X Class? There were just too many questions.

As they left, Officer Kwon came over to you with concern in her eyes. “Hey, kid,” she sighed. 

Your throat caught and you found yourself unable to respond. Her affectionate nickname made you feel suddenly small and lost.

“The director’s tough,” she continued. “But still, it’s a tremendous success that we didn’t have to resort to Plan B or Plan C.” You could tell she was trying to sound chipper despite the morbid implications of those plans, both of which entailed giving up the stealth boat and further endangering you.

You cleared your throat. “Yeah, I didn’t feel like jumping overboard or trying to fight my way out of a New Joseon brothel.” 

She sighed. “They weren’t good options, but our recovery unit was prepared for those situations, I promise.” Only now did you start to realize how horrific either Plan B or Plan C could have been, now that you had seen the dark, churning sea, the rapacious faces of the thugs… you shuddered. Combat Class agents were trained to not think, just act, but you were only secondary in the Combat Class.

Officer Kwon squeezed your shoulder, changing the subject. “I thought you should know that the other two Beta crew agents will be fine. They’re being treated as we speak.” 

Relief flooded through you. “Thank goodness,” you whispered. 

“Also, I need to inform you that you’ll be at the Seorak base for a few weeks. I know it’s been a difficult assignment, so you need to rest and recover… and… the director thinks a bit of a probation before your next assignment is necessary.”

You sat up. “Probation?” 

She looked a little guilty. “I think they’re still just figuring out how to deploy you for these bigger field assignments. Maybe testing you. D-C agents are rare. But think about it this way – you’ll get to flex your D Class muscles again, right?” You did look forward to hanging out with computers. You could actually read computer’s minds, unlike Sehun’s, for one. “And also,” she added, “since you’ll still be near Sokcho, we might be able to arrange a visit for you to see those girls as part of the debrief.” 

“Thank you, Officer. That would be great.” It was really more than you deserved, and you stood up and bowed to her. 

“I’ll see you at Seorak tomorrow for further details.”

**** 

By the time you arrived at the Seorak base, it was well past 0300 hours. Stars glowed in the moonless sky, faintly lighting your way. You’d never spent time at remote Seorak before, though you knew a lot of equipment development and research happened here. The dense foliage and deep caverns provided cover for covert work, and Security Militaire seemed to have some agreement with the New Goryeo military for operating here.

You’d been directed to a small, out-of-the-way barracks. Contrary to popular belief, agents didn't live in futuristic, swanky hideouts, and Seorak was even more rustic than most of SM’s facilities. 

The dirt trail under your feet and the quiet rustling of trees finally helped you relax from the sensory confusion of the night. And what a strange night it had been. You resolved to apologize to X-4 if you saw him again. As for Sehun… you had no idea what you would do if you saw him again, but closure would be nice. He had disappeared without explanation more than two years ago. And then just when you’d gotten over that, he showed up again. 

You saw a dim glow from the barracks up ahead and hoisted your bag onto your shoulder as you climbed up a final steep stretch of trail. 

There, illuminated by light coming from the door of the men’s side of the barracks, two figures were entwined. As you drew closer, you could see that they were embracing, kissing. Well, it wasn’t unusual for emotions to run high after an assignment, and agents weren’t discouraged from venting said emotions – as long as it didn’t interfere with their performance. Consequently, there was lots of casual sex among the young, athletic agents, and even a few longer-term relationships were permitted as long as they were disclosed and it was determined that this enhanced rather than detracted from their work. 

You hoped to pass quietly to the women’s side of the barracks without distracting them. They certainly seemed quite involved with each other anyway. You heard a bump as the shorter one pushed the taller one against the wall, and then a groan of pleasure. And wait… you knew that voice. And then you saw a flash of pink hair in the dim light.

Your bag tumbled out of your hands. Seriously? At the noise, the two startled apart. Sehun spotted you and made a noise that sounded a lot like “meep”. With alarming speed, he ducked into the barracks. 

X-4 just raised his hands and shrugged. “Well, it’s me again.” 

You were too flabbergasted to say anything. After a few awkward moments, X-4 tentatively advanced towards you.

“I’m Baekhyun. I’m sorry I never introduced myself.”

“Um… you can just call me D-C-4,” you stammered automatically. 

He didn’t seem to be fazed at all by the situation, just standing there with his hands in his pockets and humming.

“I should let you go…” you said nervously, easing towards the door to the women’s side of the barracks.

“Oh, we were just catching up… Sehun-ah is departing tomorrow but I’ll be at Seorak for a while, and we’re the only ones on the men’s side tonight, so I was just taking advantage of the opportunity to…”

You desperately did not want him to continue this train of thought, so you blurted out, “I’m sorry for slapping you earlier.” Even though now, you weren’t so sure you were sorry.

“Oh, it’s OK.” He fixed you with a suddenly wicked grin. “I kinda liked it.”

At that, you lost all ability to make small talk and bolted for your room.

**** 

The first thing you did after you settled into the women’s barracks, which turned out to be empty, was splash some cold water on your face. This turn of events temporarily erased the rest of the night from your mind, and your thoughts swirled incessantly.

So Sehun was back. And leading a unit. And hooking up with this strange agent Baekhyun? Who also seemed to enjoy making you uncomfortable? Baekhyun’s charm offensive was extremely confusing, which you supposed was why he was well suited for the Espionage Class. 

_This is all totally fine_ , you tried to tell yourself. They were both adults. Whatever. 

You hadn’t heard any noise from the men’s side except for a few conversational murmurs, so you hoped the two had gotten it out of their systems. You really needed sleep. Between a squeaky cot and several dilapidated bunk beds, you chose a top bunk that happened to have the least flimsy mattress. But as soon as you turned out the lights and climbed up into the bunk, you heard an unmistakable moan. 

You pulled the pillow over your head. Maybe that would help. At this point, you were so exhausted that you weren’t sure you had the energy to climb out of the bunk and get your earplugs. 

The pillow was useless. You heard a loud _whump_. Another _whump_. And then Baekhyun purred: “Is that all you’ve got?” You could almost see his taunting smile. Why, oh why did the barracks walls have to be so thin?

Despite how hard you were pressing the pillow over your head, you could now hear the sound of zippers being undone. 

“Damn Sehun, this harness is fucking _hard_ to take off.” You could picture Sehun’s satisfied smirk in response, the leather straps falling from his broad shoulders… 

Badbadbadbad. Suddenly, a loud BAM and clattering noise made you sit up in alarm. It was time to go get those earplugs, no matter how much your body protested. But then, you spotted light from their room coming through a gap in the dividing wall just above your bed. Impossible to resist, the little gap of glowing light drew you closer and closer.

Above the thin drywall was a foot or so of metal grating that spanned the room. Some kind of insulating board was embedded inside, but there above your bunk a corner of the board had been knocked out, just enough that you could see through to the other side. 

And there was Sehun backed up against the sole desk in the room, half perched on it, fingers digging into the wood. His harness was half off, his gear scattered across the floor. The room was dimly lit, so you couldn’t help angling forward to see more. Then the rest of his body came into view – his belt hanging undone, and there, a mess of pink hair – Baekhyun on his knees. Your eyes widened, but you couldn’t look away. Sehun’s eyes rolled back in pleasure, and he thrust his hips forward. Baekhyun splayed his hands against Sehun’s hips, and oh, those hands…

You pulled back from the gap in the wall, feeling extremely unprofessional. 

But the sound of another _whump_ broke your last strand of resolve and you brought your gaze back to the little gap. Sehun had pushed Baekhyun against the wall. Sehun’s head was turned away and he was partially obscured by a bunk bed, but you heard him fumbling around with clothing. Baekhyun’s loose white shirt was now unbuttoned and bunched up in disarray around his slim waist, his hands up against the wall to brace himself. 

Sehun leaned forward into view and you could tell he was grinding against Baekhyun, mouth trailing down his neck. Baekhyun’s face was turned towards you and you could see the sweat on his brow, his eyes closed in pleasure. But then his eyes opened, and it was almost as if he spotted your gaze. You flinched, but it was impossible for him to see you in this dark gap, right? Not breaking eye contact, Baekhyun slowly trailed one hand down the front of his body, to where Sehun had unbuckled his trousers… and with the other hand, he touched his cheek, where a light bruise was now blooming, marked by the red scrape you’d given him. He traced his slender fingers along that line to his tongue, which was licking his lips, which curled into a wicked smile…

You gasped and pulled back, heart pounding. After a panicked rush to your bag to grab the earplugs, you dove back under the covers and tried very hard to pretend to be asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... happy birthday, Baekhyun! 
> 
> I was a bit delayed in posting this chapter, partly because I was nervous to post it >.< but also because I've been getting distracted with doing concept art for this fic! Does anyone remember the EXO Power album repackage, with the comic-book style art? That's what I've been inspired by. 
> 
> As always, feedback is super duper appreciated!!


	6. (Interlude: Six Years Ago)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six years ago, things were much simpler. Go to class. Fight. Repeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to dedicate this chapter to the very amazing people who have subscribed to this fic... I appreciate each and every one of you!

#  Interlude

##  Six Years Ago

Sehun leaned over the low, wooden platform in the stall of the shooting range and adjusted his rifle. As he reached forward to habitually brush dust off the long barrel of the rifle, his uniform pants stretched taut. 

Several girls hiding in the trench next to you broke out into giggles. “It’s not fair,” your fellow cadet Joy huffed. “He’s so skinny, except for right there.” 

You were just standing up from your crouch to take one more look when the _crackkk_ of the rifle cut through the thick afternoon air. You flinched and ducked back down, just in time to hear Sehun curse and kick at the dirt in frustration. 

“You missed the target again, cadet,” yelled the instructor.

Sehun growled and returned to adjusting his gun. 

“What are you girls doing down there?” Agent Kwon suddenly appeared, looking actually tall for once from where you crouched. 

Muffled giggling. “Sir, for covering ground with a forward assault, we assumed this is where the rest of the unit would be in a real exercise,” ventured Joy boldly. “We were just trying to see how things look from this... angle.” At this, more snickers. 

Agent Kwon wasn’t amused. “If you’re so curious about military exercises, then report to the Combat area for the next formation training with the visiting infantry. It starts in five minutes.” The girls exchanged looks, but Agent Kwon was starting to puff up with anger, so you quickly dispersed.

“Not you.” Agent Kwon caught you by the collar of your uniform. “Full maintenance sweep of the shooting range. Outdoors _and_ indoors.” You groaned inwardly. There were dozens of old weapons scattered around the Armaments gear room. “You too, cadet,” she yelled at Sehun. “Maybe some time with the guns will help you improve your aim. No dinner until you finish.”

**** 

You and Sehun were both thoroughly covered in sweat and dust after sweeping up the cartridge cases littered around in the dirt. Clearly, nobody had bothered to clean up for a few weeks now. In contrast to the sweltering heat outside, the gear room was dark and cool. You each gathered up cleaning rags and solvent and sat down on opposite sides of the workbench, working separately through the pile of weapons scheduled for maintenance.

You studiously ignored him as you started with an old, empty glock. You pulled the trigger back and took the slide off, then popped the barrel out. You laid the parts out on the workbench in front of you, feeling slightly daunted by the task ahead. Sighing, you grabbed the lubricant spray and started spraying the barrel down. There were dozens of guns that needed to be checked this week. You had a feeling it was going to be a very late dinner. 

You started to worry that Sehun was angry, which made it difficult to focus on the task at hand. He kept slamming the brushes and gun parts down, the sharp sounds echoing through the silent room. Sehun was well liked by all the cool hyungs among the cadets. Though he mostly kept to himself and looked rather intimidating to you, you sometimes saw him horsing around with the older guys.

You took great interest in carefully scrubbing the grime off the spring in front of you. Maybe if you just disappeared into the workbench, he would simmer down. Normally, you wouldn’t care about a spat with another cadet – you usually kept to yourself, and they always forgot about you after a few days – but you felt bad that both of you had been assigned to this dull task, even though you had been the one loitering during training time. You just hated the military drills, even though all Security Militaire cadets had to do some basic military training alongside the more specialized training at the academy.

You were surprised when Sehun broke the silence. “You’re not from around here, are you?” he asked.

“Um… I’m not Korean, if that’s what you mean.” You got some variation of this question a lot, because you were ethnically ambiguous but spoke good Korean. You had grown up studying Korean – it was the most common second language taught around the world, after all – and one of your grandmothers had been of Korean descent. 

“So why did you come here?” You couldn’t help but feel like there was some sullenness in his tone.

“I… it’s a good career path. It’s secure. And pays well.” That was the core of your story, if not all of it.

“I mean why did you come here. You’re a foreigner, so you could choose. You could make even more money if you just sold out to the New Joseon dogs.” At the sharp tone in his voice, you stopped polishing the body of the gun and looked up at him. He seemed to be clenching his teeth as he scrubbed aggressively at the barrel of an ancient Kalashnikov. You felt like it was not a good moment to correct him about insular New Joseon. It was a common myth that they paid a lot to foreign defectors who could work as spies. 

“I guess I felt like my mom would have preferred this over my other options,” you offered slowly. “Like continuing to live under the heel of the Chinese in the New Silk Road colonies. Not many options there.” 

His dark eyes flickered up to you. You tried to ignore his gaze and focus on putting the gun back together again. “My dad wouldn’t have approved of this. He was a pacifist,” you continued quietly. Your face felt hot. “But that didn’t do him any good in the end.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” You sighed and jammed a Q-tip into the striker channel of the second glock you were working on. Sometimes you felt dirty when handling these weapons of war. The cold metal had no other function but to kill. You knew your dad would have hated it. But when you were 17, most of the colleges were closing or being taken over by Chinese propagandists. Before your parents disappeared, you’d been a promising student, but they’d left you nothing, not even extended family. Working for a company like SM seemed like your ticket out of the colonies and the only path up the few socioeconomic ladders that remained. Grind through it for ten or twenty years, retire and live comfortably if you survived. 

“My parents were killed during the Second Korean War,” he blurted out suddenly. “When New Joseon occupied Seoul.” 

Now it was your turn to apologize. The destruction of Seoul almost fifteen years ago had gone down as one of the bloodiest massacres in history. First nuclear holocaust, then a massive sweep by the united Chinese and North Korean forces. You felt a little sick just thinking of it.

“Did you join for revenge, then?” you asked quietly. 

“It’s… not like that. If it were, I would’ve just joined the military.” He tested the trigger of the Kalashnikov a few times, then set it down, satisfied. “I know this way, I can go even further. I can be the best.” 

You nodded. You knew what he meant. It was actually a paraphrasing of one of the SM recruitment slogans: With Us, You Will Be The Best. If you made it through all the tests and training, a career with SM was highly prestigious and well paid. 

As you reached for the cleaning solvent between the two of you, he spoke. “Leave it on my side. Just pass the barrel to me when you’re done. I’ll do that part.” 

The barrel was the part of a gun that took the most time to clean. You reached for the next gun, disassembled it, and handed the barrel to Sehun. While he fiddled with the pipe cleaner, you used a soft rag to wipe down the rest of the gun. The two of you continued working together in silence. The routine was more efficient that way.

**** 

After that, you and Sehun still didn’t talk much. But he would sometimes include you in his group at lunch, or save space for you to stand in front of him at the morning briefings, since he was so tall. You didn’t know what Sehun’s family had been like, but now you were essentially at the same unfortunate level – orphans. Maybe that’s why he had so many protective hyungs, though you suspected half of them were just in love with him. His aloof, almost bratty demeanor made people want to hang out with him even more, vying with each other to make him crack an incongruously goofy smile.

Many of the other cadets were from privileged backgrounds, given all the academic and athletic prep that made it easier to get admitted into the Security Militaire academy. You knew you were lucky for making it in, when many of the others had been groomed for this path since childhood. The New Goryeo kids all seemed so beautiful and strong, confident and bright. You felt self-conscious, your darker skin and unruly hair clearly marking you as one of the few foreigners. You also envied their burning conviction about their purpose in the world. Building on the work of their South Korean predecessors. Containing the expansion of China and its groveling proxy state, New Joseon. 

Though usually called a cold war, the conflict between New Goryeo and New Joseon often broke out into military skirmishes. The former mandatory enlistment for men in South Korea had been expanded to all young people in New Goryeo – and that still wasn’t enough bodies, with the frontlines on the east coast of China and the proxy wars in Southeast Asia. Thus, several paramilitary organizations had cropped up, privatizing much of the intelligence and military work that had been under the purview of the overstretched New Goryeo government. For New Goryeo youth facing mandatory enlistment, these organizations promised lower death rates and higher pay. And of these, SM was by far the most elite. SM was always recruiting for civilian staff, but being an SM _agent_ – now that was the ultimate goal of every young person in New Goryeo. 

Given the need for talent, before long, SM had started recruiting around the world. You still remembered seeing the glossy pamphlets raining from the sky the day your parents were taken away, triggering instant recall of the SM logo from endless online advertising. Of course, you’d heard of SM, but it wasn’t until the black and red pamphlets piled up in your path that you’d really considered it. In the midst of losing everything, a message had fallen from the sky. 

Already, your entry into SM felt like ages ago. You’d quickly adapted to the rhythm of intensive training at the academy. You knew at the end of the training, cadets would be assigned primary and secondary Classes of expertise from the five Classes, one for each of the first five letters of the alphabet. You would then be sorted into the pool of active agents, completing assignments week to week under the management of officers and returning to home base regularly for continued specialization. SM was basically just a management consultancy, but with guns. 

You figured you would be a D Class agent, which stood for Devices, Data, or Digital analysis, depending on whom you talked to. The officers teaching at the academy had already noticed your affinity for computers and gadgetry. It wasn’t a formal background – just the knowledge of hardware from growing up under scarcity, recycling computer and phone parts and cobbling them back together with your father’s help. Compared to the sleek glass-like tablets the agents used, swiping files to and fro in secure near-field networks, the devices you’d once played with were positively ancient, and sometimes you felt similarly clunky next to the other cadets. 

As for your secondary Class, you had no idea, but you just hoped to avoid the Combat Class, which tended to be stacked with the New Goryeo fanatics and had the highest agent fatality and injury rate. 

On the few holidays cadets were granted, most of them went home, but you noticed that Sehun also stuck around the academy. The academy was quiet and almost peaceful during those times, which were clustered in the winter. Cadets did cleaning duty in return for room and board during the holiday, and you often found Sehun in the Armaments gear room where you had first talked. 

It was during those long hours in the cold building that the two of you developed a wordless routine for maintenance on any kind of gun, you first disassembling and wiping it down, and him going in to the barrel with cleaning rods and brushes. Afterwards, with the permission of the officers, Sehun would take the old pile of weapons and fire them on the target range, making sure they were reasonably calibrated. Often you would just sit there next to him (wearing massive noise-canceling earmuffs, of course). You would load the ammo cartridges and occasionally pour hot tea for him from the huge thermos you kept on hand to keep your hands warm. It wasn’t like having a real family to go home to over the holidays, but it became your shared tradition. The rhythm of snapping a gun apart and clicking it back together, the reloads and recoils, a sip of tea for every bullet that found its mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a brief interlude - back to the main timeline in the next update, I promise! As always, feedback appreciated ^^


	7. Ammunition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is back in the present day)

The next morning, you were awakened by light pouring into the barracks. You yawned and stretched contentedly, grateful for a long and dreamless sleep. It wasn’t enough sleep, but it was a start.

Then you suddenly remembered last night, in reverse order. Heart pounding in your chest, you sat up and peeked through the gap in the wall. That side of the barracks was empty. Baekhyun and Sehun were gone. 

You tried to dismiss any lingering thoughts as immature and unprofessional. Their personal matters were their own, and the assignment was already over. 

A good agent knew not to waste emotions. 

You donned your black uniform and headed out.

**** 

Officer Kwon paced deliberately back and forth across her office as the two of you discussed the implications of the assignment. She had bags under her eyes, and you realized she had probably spent all night continuing to debrief with the relentless director.

“Director Lee agreed that their large stash of illegal weapons is concerning. They clearly had more resources than we estimated,” said Officer Kwon. “However, given that a bunch of gangsters were able to obtain military-grade stealth technology just for a commonplace raid on New Goryeo, I think we have to assume the marketplace for arms and tech has vastly expanded in New Joseon.” 

“It’s not my area of expertise,” you offered, “but isn’t it a safe assumption that those two things are being sold side by side?”

Her expression hardened. “I would hope so, because we have a pretty good handle on New Joseon arms dealing. I’ll have some of our agents track the recent flows of legal and illegal weapons sales.” Officer Kwon paused to make a note on her tablet. “In any case, the next step is to analyze the captured technology.” 

The blacker-than-black material that was used to coat the boat didn’t have a proper name yet, nor did anyone have a comprehensive description of its capabilities. That was why so many resources had gone into capturing the boat, which several months ago SM had learned was being used for human trafficking across the New Goryeo-New Joseon border. 

“So you mean figure out how it blocks satellite signals within its range?” you asked her.

“Yes, and what that range is.” She sighed, a frown darkening her youthful face. “Obviously, not knowing that made this assignment even more difficult. It meant endangering you and relying on brute force. I can only imagine what will happen if New Joseon starts spreading the tech before we really understand it.” 

“More brute force...” You echoed her words. The only way to counteract an invisible target, you supposed, was to dial up every other aspect of offense and defense. 

“You’ll have all the resources you need to analyze the tech. There’s a pretty big D Class team here, and a lot of first-rate equipment, believe it or not,” she assured you. “I’m going back to Shin-Seoul headquarters today, but I’ll be checking in with you remotely.”

“Enjoy your time at headquarters, sir.” 

She winked as she dismissed you. “We all pass through Shin-Seoul eventually.”

You bowed and left her office. Before this assignment, you had mostly been based at Shin-Seoul headquarters, doing data analytics with the occasional device drop. D Class and C Class agents usually worked together for device drops. The D Class agents were trained to install or hack devices to collect data on a target – what government agencies might call Signals Intelligence or Cyber Intelligence. Meanwhile, Combat agents were the brute force on field assignments, the ones who could be trusted to break down doors, pilot helicopters, carry equipment, and stay calm amidst it all.

You’d stopped taking on serious field assignments after Sehun disappeared. He’d been your anchor in the field, the only one who made you feel safe enough to venture out from behind your computer. But there was a career ceiling at SM without doing more advanced field assignments, which was why you’d finally put in an application for the undercover job in Sokcho.

And lo and behold, when you’d finally ventured out of your shell, he had reappeared. Was it a reward for your moment of bravery, or punishment for years of cowardice?

**** 

All the Seorak buildings were hidden under dense forest canopy or underground. As you were walking from the building where you’d met Officer Kwon to the analysis department, you heard the unmistakable crack of a sniper rifle. One. Two. Three times.

They must have a shooting range here for agents whose fingers got itchy for triggers after so much time on keyboards. Curious, you followed the noise along a winding dirt trail. 

In a clearing up ahead, several targets were lined against the foot of a dramatic rock face. You slowed down and proceeded cautiously. You didn’t see anyone in the clearing, but another deafening shot rang out, and you flinched. The sniper hit a bullseye.

A rustle from the trees above made you leap backward as someone dropped down in front of you. 

He dusted off his knees and rose to his full, considerable height. “What are you gonna do, punch me?”

You realized your hands were up, whole body tensed. “Maybe I should.”

“Are you mad at me?” He sounded suspicious, hostile.

There was so much you wanted to say. You let your hands drop. “I’m not mad. Just… surprised.” 

“My assignments have been highly confidential lately. I don’t know much about them before I’m deployed.” His tone was stiff and business-like.

“Well that’s reassuring, considering there’s probably a dozen different ways I could have died yesterday.” You realized you were still freaked out just thinking about that assignment, and Sehun’s presence wasn’t helping.

“SM wouldn’t let that happen. We were prepared for all contingencies.” He rolled his shoulders back, trying to look serious, but you could see his hands fidgeting. “Anyway, I didn’t know you would be there.”

“Did you know _Baekhyun_ would be here?” You couldn’t help blurting it out.

A flush bloomed across his pale skin. “That’s none of your business.”

“It could have been. We met earlier that night, but I didn’t even know he was SM. It might have messed with the assignment.” 

“He was making sure you were OK,” said Sehun hotly. “He was monitoring the fireworks and he watched you leave the dock. He gave us key information on the direction and speed of that boat.” 

You remembered the flash of pink hair up the beach. The searing light and noise of the fireworks. “You’re telling me he estimated coordinates in the middle of all that? Come on, he was just screwing around in the club.”

“He’s a very skilled agent.” Sehun’s jaw jutted out, as it did when he was angry.

“You certainly seemed to think so last night.” That shut him up. He looked furious. You couldn’t help but twist the knife. “So what exactly is the nature of your relationship with him? Is it detrimental to your service, or does it enhance your productivity?” Your voice dripped with sarcasm, mimicking the HR language at SM. They had once asked you the same questions about Sehun. 

His face became unreadable. That mask you’d seen every day at the academy. He threw his gear bag down on the ground, turned, and walked away. 

You looked down at the gleaming rifles in the bag. Once, you would have carefully picked each one up, loaded the ammunition, and passed it over to him. And he would have taken it gently from you, his face serene as it only was on long days of meditative riflery practice. You would have both been wearing those protective earmuffs, communicating in silence that needed no sound.

Now, the wind and trees seemed to roar around you. He was already a million miles away from you, each step taking him even further.

You turned and walked away.

**** 

Your heartbeat was still pounding in your ears when you reached the analysis department. It was ensconced in a cave underground, and the cool air dissipated your wasteful emotions slightly. Anger at yourself for provoking Sehun. Anger at him for, it seemed, forgetting the friendship you had once shared.

You were set up with a computer and a data feed for the stealth equipment. Through the glass windows in the department, you could just barely make out the blacker-than-black panels piled in the cave. 

The information scrolling through the screen was calming. Like it had been when he disappeared more than two years ago, you turned to work for distraction. As mystifying as people’s software was in real life – the psychological patterns that defined how they behaved – it was all so neat on a computer, written in code you could control. You liked software.

Several hours later, you felt a tap on your shoulder. You blinked. You were pleased that the time had passed so quickly. Every day was a step closer to the accomplishments you needed to retire early. Seorak was just another rung on your career ladder.

Then whoever it was shook your shoulder, and you realized you had zoned out entirely.

You swiveled your chair around to find a bespectacled, boyish guy with curly black hair. It took you a moment to register recognition. 

“Chen!!” you cried out, and jumped up to embrace him. He had been a bit ahead of you at the academy, but given your shared affinity for computers, you had ended up in some of the same classes. You’d always appreciated his light humor and calm, upbeat disposition in the midst of high-pressure group projects.

“I thought it was you! Ha, I’d heard you were assigned D Class. Fitting. It’s funny to see you here at Seorak.” His eyes twinkled at you. Chen had an air of perpetual amusement. 

You made a face. “It’s a long story, but I’m just glad this seems like a pretty important project.” 

“Yeah, they redirected a lot of staff to this one, including me. I’m actually leading an analysis unit. As an officer.” He puffed out his chest proudly.

“That’s great, Chen. Really great.” You hadn’t seen him since he’d finished at the academy, and were thrilled to see him not only alive but also well. “Hey, did they make you a double D?” The nerdy agents sorted into the D Class for both their primary and secondary Classes were the butt of a lot of SM jokes, but you would have much preferred that than being C secondary yourself. 

Chen’s face clouded momentarily. “Actually, they put me in Combat for my primary. But I’ve mostly done D-related work.” 

“Hmm, that’s unusual. But congratulations! How did you like the C work?” You’d felt his wiry, strong frame when you hugged him, remembering that he'd been surprisingly good at fighting despite his gentle personality. 

“Yeah, it’s whatever.” He shrugged, seeming eager to change the subject. “Hey, is that for you?” He pointed at a flashing icon on your screen.

You swiveled around. It was a confidential message from Officer Kwon. “Oh sorry, Chen, I have to deal with this now. Lunch sometime?”

“Sure thing.”

Officer Kwon had sent you a list of information she wanted you to glean and some general thoughts about how to proceed with the analysis. You had already built a model to analyze some of the data that was coming from devices running near the panels that were presumably experiencing the scrambling effect. You scanned through her message and saw a personalized note at the end. 

_Agent, I’ve arranged for you to take a visit this weekend to the girls whom we rescued. It was obviously a difficult experience for them, so I hope that seeing you will help them process what happened. They’re in Sokcho City Hospital #3 while we arrange witness protection. Agent X-4 also wants to confirm some intelligence with their doctors, and he will be accompanying you._

The details of your trip scrolled through the screen, and then the encrypted message disappeared.

You gulped. The very person you’d been trying not to think about all day. Baekhyun.


	8. The Waterfall

On Sunday morning, you stepped out of your room wearing your least shabby civilian outfit. You were starting to think of the women’s side of the barracks as your room, since no one else was showing up. Then you took two strides over to the men’s side of the barracks and knocked. X-4’s room. 

You knew he had been staying there since that first night, though Sehun hadn’t returned. You’d immersed yourself so deeply in work that you hadn’t actually seen X-4 or talked to him, but you sometimes heard him humming in the evening in a smooth voice while you idly played games on your tablet. You still felt awkward, but you were determined to be professional today. 

The door flew open and he stood there grinning at you expectantly. His hair was now a deep maroon color and he was dressed in aggressively normal clothing – a sweater and khakis. 

Ignoring your look of confusion, he clasped his hands together and greeted you. “Good morning, agent, let’s begin our day trip to Sokcho!” he announced brightly. “As you may recall, my name is Baekhyun, and I’ll be accompanying you today.” With that, he bowed, winked at you conspiratorially, and grabbed your hand, pulling you down the path and towards the roads of the base as if you were old friends.

**** 

An unmarked van took the two of you to the hospital. Along the way, Baekhyun pointed out various landmarks and points of interest in Sokcho. They didn’t seem all that interesting to you, but you figured part of his Espionage work had involved learning as much about the locality as possible. Besides, you were quite distracted. Despite the spacious three-seat bench in the van, he was scooted right up next to you, leaning over you to gesture excitedly out the window. You decided you had misinterpreted his handsiness in the club the night you first met him. It seemed that he just had no sense of personal space.

“Ah, there’s the local market!” he exclaimed. “Maybe we can go eat there later. There’s a lady who makes the best tteokbokki, and she always gives me a discount.” You wondered if he was even focused on the day’s task. 

Yet Sehun had said he was a skilled agent. You sighed and leaned against the window, trying not to think of Sehun. Instead, you thought about the girls you had met. They had made your time undercover in the brothel less nerve-wracking, friendly even, compared to this lonely and tenuous aftermath. You liked the sleepy, beach-town vibe of Sokcho compared to the dark, dense skyscrapers of Shin-Seoul. You wondered how the girls were doing, and what they had thought when they found out you weren’t really one of them.

It didn’t take long to answer your question. After arriving at the hospital, Baekhyun hurried off, saying something about meeting his own informants in another wing. 

You walked slowly down the white halls until you arrived at the room number Officer Kwon had given you. You took a deep breath and knocked. 

“Enter, please!” Chom’s cheerful voice rang out. 

As soon as you walked in, she screeched and ran over to you, hugging you joyfully. “You came back!!” 

The three girls looked recovered enough, and each had a bed and a desk in the spacious room, with partitions for privacy. Chom and the other girl pulled you over to their corner and immediately peppered you with questions about the secret agent life. You obviously couldn’t answer all of them, but tried to play up how relieved SM was that they were safe. You weren’t sure if they knew that saving them hadn’t been the main goal of the assignment. In turn, they told you how bored they were after several days in the hospital and how ready they were to leave. You were just explaining how important witness protection was when an icy voice cut through the air. 

“You shouldn’t talk to her.” Jiwoo emerged from behind her curtain. “She’s just gathering more information to sell. She used us. Our lives didn’t matter at all.” 

You turned to look at her, but didn’t say anything. She had some bruises, but otherwise looked OK. 

She glared straight at you. “It’s your fault we were almost kidnapped. We were just pawns in your operation, weren’t we?

Well, Jiwoo had always struck you as whip smart. 

“I was awake, but I couldn’t move,” she continued, her voice slicing through you. “Do you know how terrifying that is? But I know what happened. I heard the agents talking. You hid among us for weeks, pretending like you were our friend, like you understood us.” She took a step towards you. “But you’re not one of us. None of you care if a couple of call girls from Sokcho get taken. They come over and take a few girls and boys every so often, and nobody does anything. Chae disappeared a year ago… the cops laughed at me and told me it was just an occupational risk for people like me.” Now there were angry tears sliding down her cheeks.

You reached out to her. “Jiwoo, I care about you. We wouldn’t let the New Joseon kidnappers hurt you, and I tried to…” 

“Shut up. You’ve hurt us enough already. You’re just using us, like everyone else.” It stung, but she was right. There was nothing you could do. SM wasn’t going to bust the coastal human trafficking rings unless someone paid them to do it. And most of their clients were wrapped up in the wars on the other side of the world.

“We needed your help, but it would have put you in further danger to tell you…” 

She cut you off. “You really think you know what’s best for us? You can leave now.” 

You looked to the other girls, but you knew they weren’t going to argue with Jiwoo. They probably agreed with her too, even if they didn’t blame you personally. 

In a daze, you walked to the door. 

“Actually, maybe you _are_ just like us.” You paused. Jiwoo turned away from you, her hair a gleaming curtain down her back. Her voice was steady, but her shoulders were shaking. “You're a _changnyeo_ too, and the war dogs are pimping you out.” 

Chom started to protest, but you didn’t stick around to hear it. You stumbled out of the room, Jiwoo’s words wrenching your gut. You knew she was right. This whole assignment had been an exercise in calculated misery. The humiliating, impractical outfits. The leering men. The dismissive director. Your expendability, always one wrong move away. All for what? The stealth technology, of course. But for you, you had been angling for professional advancement at the cost of these girls’ safety. Your first undercover assignment – how prestigious, how valuable. Jiwoo’s words echoed in your ears, morphing into English, spoken in your father’s voice. Changnyeo. _Whore._ He’d been a gentle pacifist, but when he talked about the wars, you heard pure hatred.

 _Whore._

You were running now. Where was the practiced control you had bought with your blood, sweat, and tears? The peace of mind you’d gained by carefully hiding all this away?

_Whore. War. Whore!_

“Agent? Hey!” You almost ran into Baekhyun, who planted himself firmly in front of you. “What…?” 

You tried to hide your face and regain control, but he took one look at you and pulled you into an embrace. You stood stiffly, breathing in deeply, trying to calm yourself down. By now, you knew his scent. Sweet cotton and baby powder. It was comforting. 

You didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t ask. He just held you by the shoulders and gently steered you back to the van.

**** 

You were both silent on the ride and even your walk back to your shared barracks. It was still early, and you figured he’d gotten what he needed from the visit, or else he’d still be out. You were planning to just lay in bed and listen to sad music the rest of the day, but as you reached the barracks, Baekhyun spoke. 

“Hey, can I show you something?” You eyed him balefully. “Or somewhere, actually. There’s a nice hike and a waterfall near here.” 

Well, it wasn’t like you had anything better to do. You were still confused by him, but since you were cooped up at Seorak together, you might as well make an effort. 

You followed him through the trees to the head of a thin trail. He was calm and reserved now, quite unlike his earlier bubbliness. You both walked in silence for a while. Seorak was heavily forested but for dramatic, austere rock faces. The stunning scenery was indeed a good distraction from the chaos Jiwoo’s words had stirred up in your mind. You never wanted to do undercover work again, no matter the promise of advancement.

Ahead of you, Baekhyun’s maroon hair glinted in the shafts of sunlight coming through the trees. The afternoon warmth steeped around you. He didn’t seem to mind the heat, keeping up a good pace. You wondered how far it was, but when you opened your mouth to ask, you instead found yourself saying, “How do you do it? The espionage, I mean. The risks. The lying… to everyone.” 

Baekhyun slowed and turned to look at you, shadows dappling his face.

“Well, it certainly takes getting used to,” he said sadly. He started walking again. “But, playing a role comes naturally to me. It’s easier if you think of it like a movie. Lights, camera, action.” He mimed rolling a video camera. “I discovered that at the academy.”

“What year were you?” 

“Ah, turns out I’d finished before you and Sehun arrived.” He grinned at the noise of surprise you made - you’d assumed he was younger. “Yes, not looking my age is useful for the job.”

“So you were E Class?” 

“Yup.” 

“Then what’s that X Class about?”

He looked sideways at you. “And where did you hear that?” he said lightly. 

“Officer Kwon and the director called you that. X-4.”

He smiled. “Very observant. But if they haven’t told you, then you know I can’t either.”

“Fine.” But you wondered. And Sehun, C-A-94, was now X-94. 

While you puzzled through that, Baekhyun continued to lead the way along the slowly steepening path. The trees were shorter and denser here. 

“Are you OK with the climb?” he asked.

“The best don’t back down from a challenge,” you huffed. SM recruitment slogans. Your thighs burned from levering up rock to rock at such a clip, but you certainly weren’t going to tell Baekhyun that. He was stronger than he looked. You focused on the path, which was no longer a trail but a calculated scramble up loose dirt. The buzz of the forest below slowly faded away to cool wind on the exposed rock faces. 

Then, you started descending. You could hear water rushing somewhere nearby.

He disappeared behind a massive boulder. 

“Baekhyun?” You followed after him into the shade of the towering stone.

As you stepped around the boulder, the sound of the water grew. You gasped. There lay a sapphire-blue pool, fed by a thin but powerful waterfall. It was hidden by the outcropping of rocks, and one could have easily passed this area without knowing. The boulder adjoined a concave cliff of sorts, like the mouth of a cave, adorned by hanging plants, their leaves dripping with the spray of the waterfall. 

“Do you like it?” He stood by the pool, arms wide as if to embrace the scene.

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” you exclaimed, trying to catch your breath.

“Yep, perfect for a dip after a long hike.”

“Are you…” But before you could finish, he had stripped down to his undershirt and jumped into the pool. 

He whooped as he surfaced. “It's COLD!”

You ventured to the edge of the pool and took off your shoes. You found a large, flat rock that jutted out just enough to let you dangle your legs and feet in the water. 

Baekhyun was splashing around. He kicked his legs out like a frog and dove under the water. In the silence of his dive, you marveled at the natural beauty of Seorak. The hot sun shone into your eyes, and you decided maybe it would be OK to take a dip in this beautiful pool after all. You eased yourself into the water and waded towards the waterfall. Despite the jagged rocks, it found a perfectly straight path, a white sword plunging downwards. 

Baekhyun surfaced, shaking his head like a wet puppy. “Refreshing, ah?” 

“Definitely.” You smiled. “This is a really awesome spot.” 

“I found it during my last posting at Seorak. It was in the winter. Long nights, nothing to do, so I would hike around. I’d always wanted to come back in the summer to swim.” 

You pushed off the rocky floor of the pool and floated on your back. The sky above was clear. You imagined the stressful dregs of the morning being rinsed off. Washing away the guilt, complicity, and anger. Guilt for what you’d done to the girls. And for how things had ended with Sehun. You never knew the right things to say to him. 

The water was chilly after all. You glided back to the overhanging rock and pulled yourself onto it. The warm stone invited you to lie down, to press your cool skin against it. Well, if you couldn’t rinse the guilt away, maybe you could evaporate it off. 

Baekhyun lifted himself out of the water and wordlessly sat down next to you. Water from both of your clothes trickled down the rock in rivulets. You’d half-expected him to cuddle up, but he kept his distance. 

“We never met at the academy,” you said, to break the silence. “So why did you think I looked familiar? When we first met?”

He blinked. “Oh… I don’t know, actually. Maybe I saw your picture in an assignment briefing.” 

“I thought you were just bullshitting.”

“Nah. Come on, don’t you think we have a special bond?” He was back in his flirtatious, deflecting mode again. 

You rolled your eyes and tried to fight back the momentary flash of embarrassment that came from remembering that night. Well, now that you were on an awkward roll, you might as well bring up the other issue still nagging you at the back of your mind. “So… did Sehun leave?” you asked tentatively.

“Yeah, he had a new assignment.” 

“Have you known him a long time?” you dared yourself to ask.

“A few years now. What about you, were you guys close in the academy?”

This spy sure knew how to get under your skin. You weren’t quite sure how to answer, or how much you wanted to share. “Yes, I mean, we didn’t talk a lot. But we worked well together.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Go on.” 

“Well, that’s all. We did several assignments together as rookies. I even thought they were going to have us be a team. But it didn’t happen that way, I guess.” You felt silly for admitting this to him. Being on a set team was a big deal at SM, since agents usually took solo assignments or short-term group work in units. 

Baekhyun frowned, and a strange look momentarily crossed over his face. You tried to gauge his expression, but it had already changed, like the sun emerging from behind swift-moving clouds. He was a chameleon, all right. 

He lay back on the stone next to you. “Ah, nothing like a nap in the sun after a long assignment.”

You propped yourself up on your elbow. You weren’t going to let him deflect so easily. “Well, what about _you_ and Sehun?”

“What about us?” He blinked at you innocently. 

“Are you guys… together?”

He laughed. “We’re very… close. But not like that.”

“Not like what?”

“A serious relationship. Just sometimes… it’s good to blow off some steam, you know?” The wicked smile reappeared. “Sorry about the other night.” He didn’t sound sorry. “But you know how things are after an assignment.”

You rolled over to avoid his suddenly mischievous gaze. “Sure, I get it. Friends with benefits.”

“Hey, it works for me. Affection, if not love, should be given freely.”

“I think that’s easier said than done.”

You felt his cool hand on your shoulder, rolling you back towards him. “Well, how about it then?”

For a moment, you looked into those puppy dog eyes, heart pounding. Then you laid your head back on the rock, staring into the cloudless sky. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had… a friend. That would be nice right now.”

He flopped back beside you. “Very well. That’s a little harder, but I can try.”

The afternoon sun seeped into your skin, somehow feeling like it was dissipating the tension. You closed your eyes and felt your guard slipping away. You decided he was on to something with that nap idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to anyone who's read this far, seriously, I appreciate you.
> 
> Oh and exciting news! I've been doodling for this fic, and I'm starting to share the art. Because EXO in uniforms, why not? You can find a running gallery of my art and moodboards [here](https://cocoa-bop.tumblr.com/tagged/AofD). So far I've drawn Kai, Sehun, and Baek as I envision them in the fic. Who knows what I will draw next, it's hard to balance writing and drawing >.< but I hope you enjoy!


	9. Signal/Noise

You woke with a sudden intake of breath. Fresh mountain air. You blinked open your eyes. Cloudless sky, the sun lower. A perfect afternoon nap.

Sleepily, you looked to your side. Baekhyun was gone. You couldn’t help but feel a bit let down after your moment of vulnerability. Some friend, then.

But at a noise from your other side, you realized he had merely moved positions, following the path of sunlight like a basking cat.

“Excuse me, agent.” You prodded him. “We should get back before dark.”

“Mrrrr… it’s OK... I like hiking in the dark…” He didn’t open his eyes.

What a weirdo. You didn’t want to sprain your ankle in the pitch-black of night in a remote national park, so you slowly stretched out and rose to your feet. Your clothes were nearly dry, and you finally felt refreshed for the first time since the grueling assignment ended.

“I’ll see you back at the barracks then.”

He scrambled up. “Hey, wait for me!”

****

The next week at work, you fell completely into the world of your three computer screens. It felt good to get back to something you knew you were actually capable at. You’d left your computational model running over the day off to analyze the signals coming from the pings you were giving the stealth panels. It was some kind of advanced radar-absorbent material that made it nearly impossible to detect with conventional radar, but the main innovation was the panels’ ability to scramble outgoing signals as well. That was why you’d had to resort to something as primitive as boarding the ship and dropping a flare.

You shared a large space with several of the other agents working on analyzing the captured panels. You figured the director had assigned you to a bit of busy work given your questionable performance on the earlier assignment. You were fine with that. Just lay low for a while and not worry so much about soaring through the ranks.

You often saw Chen coming and going, conversing with the other agents, pointing to their screens and making suggestions. Sometimes they put on protective gear and handled the panels, dissecting small chunks and discussing. Chen had his own office down the hall – after all, he was an officer now.

You still hadn’t had lunch with him yet, so one day you walked over to his office to see when he might be free. His door was open slightly. You lifted your hand to knock when you saw a chunk of that familiar blacker-than-black material lying on a table next to the door, within reach. They still hadn’t let you take a good look at it yet, claiming that the instrument readings were sufficient for your work. Unthinking, you picked up the small piece and brought it up to eye-level.

The chunk of panel was so strange, the way it looked like a corner of reality peeled away to reveal a void. From some angles, you could see a cross-section of the panel. Aha! Just what you’d suspected – solar photovoltaic sheets that could absorb sunlight to power the scrambling devices. But how was the energy stored? You tilted the piece around, looking for some kind of metal battery material.

“I’ll take that.” Chen suddenly appeared from behind his door and plucked the piece out of your hand.

Startled, you jumped back and apologized profusely, automatically bowing to him. Behind him, you saw a pretty agent with long honey-blonde hair peering out at you. You recognized her as one of the other agents on the project, and bowed to her too.

“You don’t have to… it’s fine. Shh.” Chen looked up and down the empty hallway, then stepped out of his office. He sighed. “I know we haven’t had a chance to catch up yet. How about coffee Friday?” He stood in the doorway, blocking your view inside.

“Yes, uh, Friday works,” you stuttered.

“Great, see you then.” He stepped back inside and pointedly shut the door.

Well, that was suspicious. You chalked it up to the secret world of officers, and headed back to work.

****

There were only so many things for agents to do at night on a base like this. Generally, agents had somewhat limited internet access – no social media, of course. Contact with family was strictly monitored. But at Seorak, the internet was even more tightly controlled for security reasons. As a consequence, there weren’t many sites worth visiting.

So agents pursued other forms of entertainment. At night, they mingled with other staff, lounging in the mess hall, playing cards or extremely well-rationed drinking games, given the limited amount of alcohol allowed on base. Socializing might also take the form of what Baekhyun and Sehun had been up to the other night.

As for you, the most appealing option was the many video games available on your tablet. They had all kinds of games on a network just for the base. Your preferred game was Sushi Smash, which involved various levels of intricate pattern matching of different delicious rolls. You found it quite soothing. There was even a leaderboard for players on the base, and you had doggedly made your way into the top five. Your goal was to beat the number one player, whose score was so outrageously high you wondered if they even had a job.

Every night, though, almost everyone partook in the hallowed routine of streaming the daily news from SM. The news was read out from an immaculate pressroom by the same agent each time, a tiny, ethereal woman named Taeyeon. Her voice was sweet and calming, and you always made sure to watch the nightly news hour on your tablet or listen to it in the mornings if you missed the livestream. Not only was it useful for keeping up with world news, it also had tidbits of information about de-classified SM assignments that had gone well, or spotlights on different agents and their successes. It was propaganda, you knew, but addictive nonetheless.

That night, you were just finishing your ramyeon while watching Taeyeon talk about the conflict of the day when you heard a knock on the door. It was Baekhyun. As usual, new hair, this time white-blonde.

“Ah, you’re watching the news,” he said, leaning into your doorway.

“Yes. Want to join?” He’d come over a few times that week to pilfer your stash of spicy ramyeon packs, sometimes staying to watch the broadcast. Taeyeon was meticulously detailing the wave of guerilla attacks on Chinese bases in the South China Sea.

“Can’t. I’m going to Shin-Seoul tonight,” he said.

“Another assignment?”

“Maybe, and I can’t say anything more.” He grinned wryly. “I’ll be back before long.” At that, you felt relief, which made you realize the disappointment you had felt when he first said he was leaving. Just knowing he was next door at night had made you feel less alone.

“Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful.”

“Only my heart is getting broken on this trip, nothing else,” he said, laying one hand on his chest.

“If you’re flirting, please stop.”

“You be careful too.” He put his hands on your shoulders. You tried not to tense up, reminding yourself that this was maybe just how he communicated.

“I’ll just be sitting around at a computer. I’ll watch out for carpal tunnel syndrome.”

“I’m serious. These are strange times.”

With that, he hoisted his bag up and walked away, down the path towards the main road.

****

At work the next day, your noise-canceling headphones had a glitch. You were taking a break to fix them, parts disassembled across your desk, when you actually tuned in to the conversation going on in the rest of the large office space. You picked up Chen’s distinctive voice. He was in the corner, talking to an agent. You could just barely hear them.

“We already placed an order for the PV parts,” the agent was saying. “Yes, the supplier is secure. It will arrive by air tomorrow.”

“Good,” said Chen. “What’s the updated budget?”

A pause. “I believe that we’d be able to produce it at 10% lower cost than the initial estimate. Assuming we can procure the nano-coating from…”

“Right. I’m aware.” Chen lowered his voice. But by now, you’d reconfigured your headphones to amplify rather than cancel noise, and you quickly put them back on.

“… so we should be hearing from that unit soon regarding the raid on the nano-coating factory,” Chen was saying quietly. Not believing your ears, you turned ever so slightly to peer at them. Chen was standing over the agent’s desk in the far corner. Almost everyone else was out for lunch. He glanced up at you. You quickly averted your eyes.

“Let’s finish talking in my office,” Chen said. As they walked out, you heard Chen ask, “What’s the earliest production could start?”

Heart pounding, you slid off your headphones. So you’d been helping them reverse engineer the stealth tech so SM could manufacture it themselves. SM had a small production facility at Seorak, mostly to develop devices for assignments. Were they scaling up to build stealth tech for SM operations? Why hadn’t they just told you that upfront, instead of obfuscating about “analysis”?

You jumped at a notification ping on your computer. It was a message from Officer Kwon.

_Agent, I read your report. Good work so far. Sorry for the late notice, but the director has requested a psych eval before deciding your next assignment. The Seorak chief scientific officer will conduct it this afternoon._

She’d included information on when and where to report for the evaluation. Shit. It was two hours from now. You were in no condition to do well on a psych eval, your heart and mind racing, not to mention the stress of the past weeks. What was the director thinking? Probably trying to make you dig yourself into a deeper hole.

Well, you weren’t going to let that happen. You decided to go for a short hike to try and calm your nerves. You knew a particularly soothing waterfall.

****

The evaluation room was cold and intimidating, as was the officer who was checking you. She was slim and her outfit matched the room – a white lab coat and vertiginous, angular silver heels.

You shivered at the sudden contrast from the bright, warm afternoon outside. You’d never understood the method of this whole evaluation thing, which was used to assign a loyalty score. It probably used some cutting edge psychology algorithms that SM was paying millions for, but to you, it had always sounded like mumbo jumbo, even though you knew SM took the scores into account when determining everything from Classes to assignments and even promotions for the agents.

After swiping through the association test on a tablet, you sat back on the lone metal chair in the cold room and waited. You flexed your hand, which was covered in intricate sensors. You wished you could wear a jacket, but the sensors prevented it.

The officer came over and took the tablet from you. “Initiate calibration,” she said, and you felt something tightening in the complicated web of sensors.

“Tell me a lie,” the officer said.

“I love broccoli,” you replied. This was your go-to calibration lie for the regular tests. Apparently you disliked broccoli strongly enough that it registered consistently on the sensors.

“We’ll begin now,” the steely woman said. “Relax your mind. Don’t think before you respond. A useful evaluation requires you to be open with us – and yourself.”

 _You’ve done this dozens of times_ , you reminded yourself. You crossed your arms and nodded, preparing yourself for the rapid-fire questions.

“The results of your physical exam one month ago were impressive. Do you feel healthy now?”

“Yes.”

“Even after your last assignment?”

“I slacked a bit on exercising. It was hard to find time and space while I was undercover.”

“Was it stressful to be undercover?”

“It was a little stressful.”

“Please elaborate.”

“I am inexperienced in undercover assignments.”

“Was there anything particularly stressful about this particular assignment?” Her voice was grating, as if trying to scrape something out of you.

“I… I couldn’t fit in.” You could feel yourself start to fidget nervously. “It was very hard to play the role.”

“Your past evals indicate you are quite introverted. Did you bond with the floaters?”

She meant the other girls at the brothel. You tried not to think of Jiwoo’s last stinging words. “I did.”

“More than your colleagues here at SM?”

“… No.”

“Do you find it difficult to form bonds with other people?”

“Sometimes. That’s probably in your records.” You couldn’t help it.

“I sense defensiveness.”

You didn’t say anything.

“ _Let’s cut the crap, alright_?” the officer said suddenly, in perfect English with a hint of California brattiness.

You almost jumped out of your chair. She must have grown up in the colonies too. You couldn’t tell her age, but maybe she was actually Korean-American, from when both those countries still existed.

“ _If you’re not going to be forthcoming in Korean, maybe your native language will help. I read your files. Don’t look so surprised._ ” The officer put down her tablet and looked up at you. Her gaze was piercing, and you tried to resist the urge to shrink down in your chair. “ _It’s time for the long-form questions and answers. You know the drill. Listen to the prompt and discuss your thoughts for approximately one minute._ ” She sighed. “ _In whatever language you prefer._ ”

She pushed a button and a mechanized voice began. “Following the destruction of Silicon Valley and the closure of many institutions of higher learning around the world, the rate of innovation has slowed. By many metrics, the world is lapsing in technological progress, compared to the early 21st century. As an SM agent, you are in an organization that remains at the forefront of innovation. Please describe your opinion on SM’s role in innovation and its relation to this global trend.”

You knew you couldn’t hesitate too long before answering. Somehow, it was easier to speak in Korean for this. More detached. “I see things logically. Militaries around the world are returning to drafts because we now have to fight using people, not technology. Manpower will always be a resource. Some people call it brutal. Military fatality rates are way up. But this period of relative decline in innovation can be an opportunity.”

You were good at bullshitting under pressure, but now you felt yourself beginning to grasp. You were not a wordy person.

“I wonder if there is a way SM can make better use of manpower as our competitive edge. Not just putting more effective weapons in people’s hands. But making the people themselves more effective. Maybe the military… or places like SM can… can promote special skills in their people. Like more than…”

“That’s fine, agent.” The officer cut you off. You were going to say “more than just how to kill other people.” So far, the trend at SM had been towards more brute force. More Combat Class agents. And more death.

But the officer was already moving on. “Adaptive free association begins now.” She looked up at you. “ _Actually, I’d like to do this in English. Multilingual people sometimes express different personalities in each language, so we need a more comprehensive understanding of where your loyalties lie._ ” Her expression was calculating. “ _Please state a word or phrase in response to the prompted word or phrase, which has multiple interpretations. Again, quickly. _”__

 _Flight._ The mechanical voice started up again, this time in English.

"Um... stairs.” You hadn’t spoken English in a while, and you felt unsteady.

_Might._

Like mighty. “Strength.”

_Right._

“Left?”

_Light._

His face appeared in your mind. His playful smile, beaming. “Friend.”

****

You stood outside the evaluation room, nervously bouncing up and down on your toes. The officer had said to wait outside while she processed your results. Psych evals were always painfully awkward – you never got feedback, but you hadn’t been kicked out for disloyalty either, so you’d assumed you were doing fine. Now, you weren’t so sure. The timing was weird, and the questions had been even more bizarre than usual.

The door opened. “Agent, come in,” said the officer. As you stepped back into the frigid room, you saw a shadowy figure projected on a screen that had emerged from the wall. The director. You stiffened in surprise. The officer closed the door behind you.

The director addressed you. “Agent D-C-4, your analysis on the stealth technology has been helpful. But, you’re no longer needed there. We’re moving you to another project that’s ongoing at Seorak.”

“Yes, sir.” You thought to what you’d overheard today. Chen’s secretiveness. The reality-warping panels. You weren’t sad to leave that work and anything associated with the Sokcho assignment behind.

“It’s a highly classified project,” the director continued. “Which means it will be a prestigious assignment for you. I understand that you took the Sokcho assignment out of a desire for career growth.”

And just look at how that had gone. Just thinking back to Sokcho made you feel miserable. But maybe this would be your second chance. You rolled your shoulders back and stood straight. “Yes, sir.”

“Officer Young here will be your new handler. Since you’re both foreigners, I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.” From the way Officer Young’s eyes narrowed as she smiled appraisingly at you, like a predator assessing its prey, you weren’t so sure about that.

“What is my new assignment, sir?”

“Bioinformatics," said the director. "I’ll be coming to Seorak myself to ensure the next phase of this project goes perfectly. The X Project.”

# End of Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels strange to be posting this chapter in the midst of everything that's going on. But, here we are anyway, it's the end of Part 1! I hope you enjoyed the ride! We ended on a very nerdy note, sorry about that, I get carried away with the research. Also, thank you to [@wae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wae/) for helping me with some Korean-isms that will hopefully make the rest of the story better, and for giving me the idea of the glossary at the very beginning!
> 
> The story will be back in a week or so with Part 2 and more Kaisoo! If you made it here, consider leaving some feedback to carry your author through editing Part 2? ^^ More importantly, stay safe and be well.


	10. Part 2: Prologue

# Part 2

## Prologue

The heat made Kai feel like he was spinning out, dizzy, burning in a slow crash. He was sprawled across the scratchy mattress in his temporary apartment, just sweating. Of course there was no air conditioning, and of course the announcer on the TV was describing the ever-increasing urban heat island effect that plagued all the cities in New Goryeo.

He had spent the morning killing time, generating aimless logs of cam footage scans. Waiting is always the hardest part, as they say, but he didn’t know what exactly he was waiting for. 

Then, the AC had given out. Maybe it was a sign to just deal with one challenge at a time. As the temperature crept up, his brain stopped working properly. Not just his brain – also his body. He felt his lightning reflexes shutting down, as if his very cells were melting from the heat. 

He had lain down, mopped his brow with a towel doused in cool water, and wondered whether to call SM or the landlord, if he could even find them. When an undercover agent in a black market apartment breaks their air conditioning, who fixes it? 

The damp towel was now the same temperature as the air. Kai thought of D.O., the pleasant shade and fresh air of his courtyard nest, the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheeks when he was lost in thought. _Is this a dream?_ Kai wondered to himself. _Or did I actually do something so incredibly stupid in real life? ___

__His tablet buzzed. Kai sat up, groggy. It was Director Lee. Jolting into action, Kai instinctively checked that all his doors and windows were closed before bringing up the director’s video on the big screen._ _

__“X-88,” the director murmured by way of greeting. “You still have not found your target yet.”_ _

__Without a breeze from outside, the room became even more stifling. Kai swallowed. “Sir, I have identified four of his regular hiding places and seven more temporary ones. I believe he can only have one or two more beyond this. But, he is… he is highly skilled at avoiding me.”_ _

__“So you haven’t even gotten close enough for a retrieval opportunity?”_ _

__“No, sir. His ability to detect me and other agents seems to be improving.” Kai tried to speak with certainty._ _

__The director looked smug for a moment. “Aha, that’s very interesting indeed. Perhaps we will have to turn to our colleagues in Espionage for some… targeted strategies.” He stroked his thick chin thoughtfully. “An aerial strike is obviously out of the question, but I wonder if poison would interfere with our ability to recover critical data from the body.”_ _

__Kai tried not to visibly blanch as the director monotonously ran through a number of chilling ideas. Kai had managed to make himself seem busy for the past week, continuing to take short trips to investigate leads and managing the footage search algorithms. But he didn’t know how long the charade could last. He was trained for combat, movement, lethal physicality – these kinds of deceptive activities were best done by D and E Class agents with skills he didn’t really have._ _

__The director finished his morbid monologue. “Actually, X-88, I’ve decided you’ll be more valuable elsewhere at the moment. I need you to go to Seorak base for more tests.”_ _

__“Sir?”_ _

__“Ah, that’s right. I didn’t mention. I’ve decided to resume the X Project,” the director declared casually. “Your fellow agents are already at Seorak, so it’s about time you join them.”_ _

__Relief, confusion, and remorse flooded through Kai. He tried to sit up and look sharp. “Yes, sir. But… what about the target?”_ _

__“The agents in your unit will continue the search for the target. I no longer care about capturing him, so we won't need your finessed skill set anymore. All we need is his body.” Kai’s eyes widened, but the director didn’t notice, scowling deeply and examining his fingernails. “I’m tired of that _defector_ evading us and staining our reputation. I knew from the start he was too puny and cautious to be a good agent, really. But for some reason the other officers saw potential in him.” The director seemed to be in an uncharacteristic mood, almost muttering to himself. “No, I knew he would be the one to defect. That cowardice – it’s hard-wired into their anatomy. I won’t tolerate such imperfections in our agents.” The director’s hands twitched, and Kai saw the screen shudder. “Is that clear?”_ _

__Kai composed himself and nodded, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was nodding at. “Yes, sir.”_ _

__“Good. I’ll send a retrieval car for you at the end of the week.”_ _

__“Oh, um, are you sure, sir? I can get myself to the base,” Kai stuttered. The director raised an eyebrow. “It’s just, I’ve gotten so used to traveling solo during this assignment. I wouldn’t want to waste company resources,” Kai added lamely._ _

__“I’ll decide what is and isn’t the best use of my resources,” the director said quietly. He paused, and Kai tried not to fidget nervously. “But very well,” the director continued. “I’ll send you the coordinates for a checkpoint near Seorak. Be there by Sunday afternoon.”_ _

__The screen went dark._ _


	11. City Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chanyeol is called in by the one he's been waiting for.

Chanyeol leaned out over his balcony, getting lost in the hazy lights of Shin-Seoul, so dense they turned into one flat glow as he let his focus blur. Dark music pulsed from the bars of speakers embedded around his hilltop penthouse, his bachelor pad – no, palace. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe in the city far below. Maybe he’d go out to a club later so he didn’t have to be alone here. He’d have his pick of substances there to help him forget the stress of the day. The week. The year. Until then, another glass of expensive whiskey couldn’t hurt. 

But the black duffel bags piled in the corner of his penthouse wouldn’t let him forget, not until he found a buyer for them. He sighed and loped across the gleaming patio back inside, leaving the floor-to-ceiling glass doors wide open to let in the night. 

At the bar beneath the prodigious collection of gleaming firearms mounted on his wall, Chanyeol poured himself another drink. It had been a long week, and he felt he deserved to let loose tonight, after so much wound-up negotiating and wheedling and cajoling. Finally, he’d gotten the right price for the deal, but between the SM handlers breathing down his neck and the creepy New Joseon arms barons, he didn’t really feel like it had been a _good_ assignment, per se. 

No, not “assignment”. That wasn’t the word for what he did anymore. _Contract_. It was hard to shake off the agent lingo. 

There was a faint noise from behind him on the balcony. Casually, he reached for his custom Browning Renaissance, right there on the wall. It was a beautiful handgun, with mother-of-pearl inlay on the grip and engraved metal flowers. And it shot straight. 

He turned around and pointed it right at the heart of the boy who was now standing just a few steps away.

The boy raised his hands. “Is that your nicest gun, or are you just happy to see me?”

Chanyeol returned the gun to its place on the rack. “Far from the nicest.” He grinned. “And yes, I am happy to see you, Baek.” He strode over and pulled Baekhyun into his strong embrace. “It’s been a while.”

“Oof, Chanyeol, save it for later,” gasped Baekhyun. 

“Sorry. You, uh, want a drink or anything?” Chanyeol tried to sound relaxed, fighting down the sudden fluttering in his heart.

Baekhyun grimaced. “I’m fine.” He walked forward into the penthouse, taking in the wall of mounted guns, the gleaming floor and countertops, the spacious view of Shin-Seoul. Chanyeol watched him, noting the new clothes, the new color of his hair. Tried not to say anything in case it was just a dream. 

Baekhyun paced through the penthouse, running his fingers over luxurious details here and there. “Fancy place. You’re doing well for yourself.” The unspoken comparison to before made Chanyeol’s ears redden. 

Baekhyun stopped in front of the pile of black bags. “Are you gonna tell me about those?” he asked.

Chanyeol knew nothing could escape Baekhyun’s eye. “Just leftovers from the latest deal. It’s been pretty busy these days.” 

Baekhyun kept pacing. “And who are we selling guns to now?” he asked lightly. 

“Your mom, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol grunted in exasperation. “Are you gonna tell me why you’re suddenly here? After, what, almost a year?” He tried to swallow any further words. He’d never had the temperament for Baekhyun’s teasing. _Play it cool_ , he told himself. 

Baekhyun turned to him. Took a few steps towards him. Chanyeol’s heart sped up. “I just wanted to see you,” he replied innocently, but Chanyeol still detected playfulness, deflection. “Is that reason enough?”

“And you couldn't just knock on the front door?”

“I didn’t feel like being on all the security cameras. You’re being very closely watched, you know.”

Chanyeol frowned in annoyance. “Yeah, well, nobody ever really leaves SM. At least there’s no monitoring equipment in here. I had Chen check the last time he visited.”

Baekhyun’s eyes flickered up to Chanyeol’s. “So nobody will see if I do this?” He walked right up to Chanyeol and entwined his fingers into the loops of his belt, dragging his hips forward until they were an inch apart. Chanyeol looked down into Baekhyun’s bright, unwavering gaze and felt his heart hammering. It had been so long, and now he was so close. 

Chanyeol let one hand fall heavily on Baekhyun’s shoulder, whether to steady himself or push the spy away, he didn’t know. He managed to pry himself backwards a few steps, didn't miss the flicker of disappointment in Baekhyun’s warm brown eyes, the hand that ever so slightly reached after him.

Chanyeol took a deep breath and turned back to the bar, pouring himself yet another drink. Somehow, the glass was already empty again. “At least tell me what you’ve been doing since I last saw you.”

“Why don’t you go first, then?” came the lilting reply.

Chanyeol downed the drink in one go. “It’s supposed to be classified, but it seems like you already know.” 

“The same as before?”

“You know what the agreement was. I’ve been doing the exact same thing every day since I left SM,” Chanyeol sighed. As he reached for the crystal decanter again, a slender hand wrapped around his wrist. “Baek…” he growled roughly, but stopped at the look in his eyes. 

They’d never been good with words anyways. Baekhyun’s hand trailed further up his arm, then rested on his chest. Silently, Baekhyun invited himself into an embrace. Chanyeol still didn’t know how he did it, so easily entwined himself in someone’s arms. 

But more than a moment of tenderness would be dangerous. Chanyeol didn’t want to remember everything, only the good parts, and that was easier if he just focused on Baekhyun’s hands now skimming down his thighs, tugging at the fabric of his black jeans just so. A fire was kindling inside him. 

Chanyeol grabbed Baekhyun’s wrists roughly, wrenching Baekhyun’s wandering hands away from him. He savored the look that came across Baekhyun’s face at being grabbed like that. Fuck it. It had been too long, and this was so, so much easier than talking. 

Chanyeol dragged Baekhyun with him as he stumbled back onto the couch, pulling him onto his lap. He grabbed a fistful of Baekhyun’s hair and yanked his oversized shirt off his shoulder, running his tongue along the pale neck, biting lightly as he listened to Baekhyun’s breath quickening against his ear. He pushed his hand up Baekhyun’s shirt, exploring the smooth skin there, the ripple of ribs. He felt thinner, but Chanyeol didn’t want to think about it. His hand trailed lower. At least Baek’s ass was still there. 

“C’mon, Chan, I didn’t come here for foreplay.” 

Chanyeol sat up, dazed. “Must you always move so fast?”

“Well, I’d die if I didn’t,” Baekhyun sighed into his neck, pushing his hips down against Chanyeol. 

With the hand still tangled in Baekhyun’s hair, Chanyeol pulled his head back roughly. Baekhyun was unabashed under his gaze, just licking his lips and waiting as Chanyeol appraised him. Just moments ago, looking right at him had been too much, almost painful, like staring into the sun. But now Chanyeol noticed the smudged eyeliner, the top few buttons of his shirt undone just so.

“Oh, don’t tell me you dressed up for me,” Chanyeol rumbled, pleased. 

“It’s so unlike you to notice.” Baekhyun grinned lasciviously, the look in his eyes daring Chanyeol to do something about the desire he’d held coiled inside for so long, dreaming of the day they might see each other again. The waiting had almost broken him, he realized now. Waiting and never knowing when Baekhyun would return.

But now he was here, and he was Chanyeol's. Chanyeol grabbed him and in one movement lifted him off the couch. “I know what you need,” he growled, carrying him to the bedroom. “How many people have you fucked since I last saw you?” 

Baekhyun’s hands were in his hair. “Not as many as I would have liked.” 

He threw Baekhyun down onto the ostentatious king-sized bed in response.

****

In the tangle of blankets and limbs and sweat and semen, Chanyeol realized he had dozed off for a moment. It must have been the whiskey. He was curled up next to Baekhyun, and Baekhyun’s hand was in his hair, gently ruffling it. Chanyeol sighed in satisfaction. The lights of Shin-Seoul pushed in through the curtains and filled the room with a dull orange glow. Chanyeol had never opted for blackout curtains even with all the light pollution. He didn’t like the dark.

In the nighttime haze, he saw Baekhyun’s eyes were open, and he was staring at the ceiling. 

“What is it, Agent Byun?”

Baekhyun smiled slightly. “There’s another reason I came here.”

“Agh, I knew it.” Chanyeol slapped one hand onto Baekhyun’s bare stomach, and then rolled Baekhyun over to face him. The spy’s expression was unreadable.

“We’re being summoned in. For some tests. I think they want to start again.”

“All of us?”

“I don’t know. But I found out that they're going to call you in soon. It’s mandatory. They reassigned me to the site a while ago.” 

“How long ‘til they call?”

“Hmm, you’ll probably get the missive when the work day starts. And then the helicopter will come around 1100 hours.” 

Chanyeol glanced over at his clock. “So that gives us seven hours. Plenty of time.” He didn’t want to think about it. Relief, anger, and fear. Whatever. As long as Baekhyun was here. He buried his face in Baekhyun’s neck, and his hand traced down Baekhyun’s smooth stomach, lower and lower. 

“Well, _I_ have to go before they get here,” grumbled Baekhyun. “I have work to do in Shin-Seoul all day.” 

“C’mon, you’re fast. And sneaky. Go out the way you came. Don’t say no.” Chanyeol was now on top of Baekhyun, his large hand encircling both their semi-hard cocks together, rubbing them up and down. “I know the _main_ reason you came here is that you want me.”

Baekhyun leaned forward and kissed Chanyeol on the lips, probably to shut him up. Was it the first time that night? Chanyeol couldn’t remember if they’d really bothered with kissing before. It had always been frenzied fucking. Usually from behind. And if not, well, Baekhyun liked eye contact. That teasing stare that drove Chanyeol wild. 

But this felt good too. Baekhyun’s lips were so soft. He bit at them gently, then clumsily pushed his tongue into Baekhyun’s mouth. It was different and strange, but something he thought he might like to get used to, if ever such luxuries might be allowed for two agents who lived under the clock and the gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O_O OK I've been exposed. It's ChanBaek. It was always ChanBaek. Hope I can convince you to ChanBaek too. 
> 
> And also, Chanyeol is our next major POV character so you'll be seeing a lot of him for the rest of the story!


	12. Edge

Baekhyun had been right. By 1100 hours, Chanyeol was standing on the helipad on the roof of his building, because of course he lived in a building gilded enough to have its own helipad. He was _Chanyeol_ , and Chanyeol needed nice things. 

He squinted into the gray glare of the sky as roaring waves of air from the helicopter blades washed over him. He wasn’t surprised that this day had come. Though he’d officially left SM, he wasn’t free by any means. He had signed endless non-disclosure agreements, agreed to surveillance, promised he would be more lucrative to them as a contractor than as an agent – that was the arrangement, the only instance they had ever let an agent leave. Yet the agency always hung over him, a dark cloud on the horizon. 

When he’d woken up again that morning, Baekhyun was gone. He figured it was just another tally for their on-again-off-again ways, and tried not to think about the boy whose clean, baby-powder scent lingered in his bed. Anyway, he’d had to scramble to tie up the loose ends from the night before, all while alerts from SM pinged every screen he owned about the imminent retrieval. But he’d made it work. And now he did his best to look cool and collected as an agent hopped out of the helicopter and came over to him. 

“Is this your luggage, agent, I mean, sunbae… sir?” The agent was young and nervous-looking. A rookie, for sure. 

Chanyeol glanced down at his massive Louis Vuitton suitcase. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

“N-no, it’s just… they didn’t say…”

Chanyeol fixed the rookie with a hard stare. The young man gulped and took the handle of the suitcase from Chanyeol, dragging it back to the helicopter. With one stride of his long legs, Chanyeol smoothly pulled himself into the helicopter and strapped himself into the seat, watching the shorter agent struggle to hoist the suitcase in.

**** 

The trip to the base was uneventful. Sure, he was transferred from helicopter to van to small plane, and the security at each transfer point was shockingly tight, but at least at each transfer the flustered rookie helped him with his luggage.

The rookie looked scared of Chanyeol, and Chanyeol thought he had a right to be. The way SM was bringing him in made him feel like some volatile, toxic cargo. The whole operation stank of mistrust. 

As the lush canopy of Seorak unfolded beneath him, Chanyeol tried to quell his nerves. It had taken a certain numbness to get through the past year, which drugs and alcohol had helped with, but this sudden uprooting from his luxurious life in Shin-Seoul brought back the edge. He had worked hard in Shin-Seoul, and finally felt like he was achieving some semblance of the dream he’d had when he was just a louche teen with stars in his eyes. 

Chanyeol saw his reflection in the tinted pane of the airplane window. He looked tired, haggard. But damn, his platinum undercut looked good, and he’d made sure to wear his most expensive leather jacket, enjoying civilian clothes while he could. Teenage Chanyeol would have been proud, he thought. Back then, his family was just scraping by, having tumbled from the upper class hard and fast. Not that you would have ever known it from the way his parents carried themselves. Now, every month, they received a nondescript envelope with a fat wad of cash from Chanyeol. Chanyeol the loser, Chanyeol the dropout, Chanyeol the disappointment. He almost wished he were allowed to visit them so he could see how they handled the money. He was sure they deposited it immediately, discreetly, quickly forgetting it wasn’t their own. 

“Agent? Sunbae sir?” The rookie’s anxious voice brought him back to reality. He still hadn’t figured out what to call Chanyeol, and had seemingly decided to just use every possible term of politeness. “We’re about to land. I’ve been told that you need to proceed to the briefing room. Here is the information you’ll need…” The rookie prattled on, showing Chanyeol diagrams and maps of the Seorak base on his tablet screen while trying to stay as far away as possible, like Chanyeol was radioactive. 

“Thanks, agent.” Chanyeol clapped the rookie on the shoulder and laughed inwardly as the nervous boy tried not to flinch. “And you are…?”

“Agent C-A-162, sir. You can… please, just call me Mark. I’ve been assigned to manage your transfer and accompany you until you reach the briefing room, at which point I will… uh… conclude my assignment.” He looked visibly relieved at that thought. 

“C-A-162, huh. I was C-A Class too.”

Mark brightened up at that. “Really? You were?” Then his face clouded at Chanyeol’s use of the past tense. “You _were_ …”

“Now I’m something else entirely,” said Chanyeol, smirking. Mark went ashen and burrowed further into his seat, away from Chanyeol.

**** 

As Mark led him through the large central building in Seorak, Chanyeol tried to take in the surroundings. They were underground, but there were plenty of sun lamps embedded around the building to make it look like natural light was pouring in. Even the mess hall looked reasonably pleasant, though it was mostly empty in the late afternoon.

Chanyeol stopped. He thought he saw a familiar face in the mess hall. Yes, that was Chen, nursing a cup of coffee, sitting in silence across from a girl Chanyeol didn’t recognize. It looked like an awkward silence. “Chen?” Chanyeol called out. He was struck by how pale Chen looked – probably from spending too much time underground with computers.

“Sunbae… sir, we have to proceed to the briefing…” Mark protested, but Chanyeol and Chen were already moving towards each other. Chanyeol could tell from his body language that Chen was nervous, maybe upset, so he tried to wrap the smaller man in as big and comforting a hug as possible. 

“Whoa, Chanyeol, it’s good to see you!” Chen’s voice was muffled from being buried in Chanyeol’s shoulder. “What are you doing here? I thought things were going well in Shin-Seoul.”

“They are. But I was called here. Did they… ?” Unspoken questions passed between Chanyeol and Chen. Mark looked deeply uncomfortable. Chanyeol couldn’t tell how much other people knew, so he felt he shouldn’t say more. 

“I’m sure I’ll be updated soon enough,” Chen said quickly. He gave Chanyeol’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, maybe stop by my quarters tonight? We can catch up.” The unspoken implication was that officers’ quarters were not under surveillance.

“Officer’s quarters, eh? Bet it’s nice. Sure, I’ll come by on the later side.”

“It’s not as nice as your pad in Shin-Seoul, but I’ll try to clean up a bit.” Chen gave Chanyeol a small smile and hurried back.

Mark seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating, so Chanyeol kept his mouth shut and just followed the young agent to the briefing room. As soon as they arrived, the rookie bowed deeply and scurried off. 

Chanyeol stepped into the room, where a nondescript older man in a perfectly tailored pinstripe suit and a rail-thin blonde woman awaited him. Chanyeol knew better than to underestimate Director Lee’s mundane appearance, but Tiffany Young was exactly as beautiful as she was cruel.

“You,” Chanyeol snarled at her. 

“I’m so happy to see you, darling, and I knew you’d be happy to see me too.” Tiffany smiled, but her face was cold. 

“Bitch.”

Her smile didn’t waver. “I’m not even poking and prodding you yet and you’re already hurling insults. Oh, I can’t wait to see what filthy language I’ll pull out of you later.”

“Your roots are showing, Tiffany.” The gray-black streaks that radiated from her scalp were probably a fashion statement, but Chanyeol didn’t mean it that way.

“And that undercut highlights your prominent ears so nicely.” Her singsong voice was the most grating thing Chanyeol had ever heard.

“That’s enough,” said Director Lee quietly, and they both fell silent. “We’re going to get things right this time,” continued the director, his voice precise but oddly flat. “We will not hurry. We will work together harmoniously.”

At this, Chanyeol locked eyes again with Tiffany, scowling. 

“I have finally acquired the budget I need to push forward this project in a satisfactory manner. However, for the sake of… discretion, the on-site staff for this project will be few in number. Officer Young will be managing you all.”

“What’s in it for me, then?” Chanyeol demanded. “I thought we had a good arrangement. I know my work in Shin-Seoul was quite lucrative for you.” 

“And you as well, Agent X-61. Don’t worry about a temporary slump in your sales. We’ll compensate you at ten million won. Per week.”

Chanyeol was a savvy negotiator by now, and knew not to jump on a deal too fast, no matter how tempting. He sneered. “And how long will I be here? Every week away from my network in Shin-Seoul, my precious connections decay. And that won’t be good for you either.”

“I can’t speak to the project timeline. Let’s just say we’ll provide you with a one hundred million won bonus once we’re done here at Seorak.” 

“Two hundred million.”

At this, Officer Young tittered delicately. “Oh darling, but you’re a _dud_. How could you think you’re so valuable?”

Chanyeol started towards her, but the director smoothly interrupted. 

“We will consider an additional fifty million if you demonstrate satisfactory progress.” 

Chanyeol was seething, but at this point he just wanted to get away from these two odious people as quickly as possible. “My gear and assignment details, please.”

“Waiting for you with your luggage in your quarters. Information is on here.” Director Lee nodded at Officer Young, and she handed Chanyeol a tablet. He snatched it from her. “You will use that for secure communication regarding this assignment. Naturally, like last time, everything is classified to the highest degree.”

Chanyeol was already walking out of the room.

**** 

Of course, someone had already gone through his luggage and confiscated his stash of illegal substances. At least they’d left his huge bottle of expensive whiskey alone. He’d have to ration it.

Chanyeol tried to get comfortable in the spare room they’d given him. He was no stranger to barebones living, but he missed his king-sized bed and plush satin sheets just the same. His feet hung off the edge of the flimsy double bed. 

But they hadn’t gotten the snuffboxes of ultra-potent weed hidden in the heels of his patent leather boots. Chanyeol smirked to himself as he rolled a joint, struck a match. It was barely anything, but at least it would help him take the edge off tonight. 

He knew it was an illusion that he had a choice about being here, but the money, he had to admit, wasn’t bad.

**** 

Chen’s quarters were close by. Chanyeol knocked and leaned against the door. He could already feel his high wearing off.

The door opened just a crack, a beam of light shining out into the near-complete darkness that blanketed the national park. 

“Hey, Chanyeol, come in.”

Chanyeol stumbled in and took in the surroundings. “Not fair, your place is way bigger than mine.” As Chen closed the door, Chanyeol suddenly spotted a young woman with long blonde hair sitting at the desk on the other side of the room. She was looking at him with some trepidation. 

“Shit, sorry Chen, I’ll come back later.”

“No, it’s OK. This is Agent D-D-37.” 

Her wide eyes blinked up at Chanyeol. “You can call me Yeri,” she said shyly. 

Chanyeol took in the room, slowly realizing he wasn’t interrupting a casual visit – there were two desks in the room, two bureaus, Yeri’s shoes piled on top of Chen’s by the door. She lived here too. Which meant…

“Chen, you can’t… you shouldn’t have…” He felt wobbly.

Chen must have noticed that Chanyeol had been indulging in his whiskey stash, because he quickly grabbed Chanyeol’s arm and ushered him out of the room. 

“I’ll be right back, babe,” he said over his shoulder as he pushed Chanyeol through the door. Chanyeol caught one last glimpse of Yeri’s stricken face. 

They stumbled a few steps down the path outside Chen’s quarters before Chen loosened his iron grip on Chanyeol’s arm. The small man was surprisingly strong. 

“Chanyeol, I was hoping you’d play it cool. Yes, Yeri and I are together. Is that a problem?”

“No… I mean yes… we’re not supposed to…”

“Our officers approved it. We met here a year ago on the big project upgrading the Seorak security systems. She’s really smart, and nice, and cute…”

“No, I mean, _we’re_ not supposed to… be with other people. Like this. They’re gonna use it against you, Chen.” 

“They won’t if we don't do anything wrong... there’s no reason for that. I’m working with them – they recently made me an officer, for god’s sake.” He sounded defensive. 

“Don’t be selfish. You’re endangering her.” 

In the darkness, there was a spark of light, and Chanyeol could see Chen set his jaw. He had gone too far. “We deserve happiness too, you know,” said Chen stiffly. 

“I’m not so sure.” Chanyeol felt the edge. The fear. “After what happened…”

Chen cut him off. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit hypocritical?”

“How so?” asked Chanyeol warily.

“Baekhyun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm I couldn't find a Chen/Yeri relationship tag XD  
> What do you think?


	13. Dust

Chanyeol was at Seorak for four days, and experiencing headaches for three days, before he found a reliable way to get coffee. 

Though he didn’t want to admit it, he was having a hard time giving up his cushy life in Shin-Seoul and the substances that had come with it. He was a long way from his rookie days, when he’d been a lean, mean fighting machine. At least, more so than he was now.

So far, they had just been gathering baseline data on him. Tiffany had primly pursed her lips when reviewing the results from his first urine test, but thankfully she hadn’t said anything. Chanyeol’s headache was already splitting enough. He had to run on a treadmill, get electrodes plastered across his head, and lay inside an MRI machine for hours, which certainly did not help the headache. 

Other than that, he was free to roam the base. But after just a few days, it was clear that his boredom was compounded by his need to distract himself from the strange predicament he had ended up in. He buzzed with nervous energy. He’d never been able to handle the _waiting_ part of being an agent. 

They kept him on a nocturnal schedule to minimize interactions with the other agents on-site. He was allowed to practice on the shooting range when others weren’t there, and he had already tried all of the weapons they had onsite. When he’d logged on to his tablet, he’d found drastically restricted internet access. He’d even resorted to playing stupid on-base games like Sushi Smash, but almost threw his tablet across the room in frustration after several rounds. 

Though he didn’t want to admit it to himself, Chanyeol craved human interaction. Chen wasn’t talking to him, and so far Tiffany was the only other person he knew at the base. He’d even asked Mark to hang out, but the flustered rookie had stammered out an excuse and rushed away. Despite being a regular on the party circuit in Shin-Seoul, Chanyeol had been lonely there, but this musty old park was infinitely worse. 

That was why he was overjoyed when he saw a familiar face on his fourth day at the base. After waking up in the late afternoon, he had wandered past the shooting range to a small dugout training area. A natural basin in the earth had been rudimentarily paved and turned into a fighting ring, with seating and warmup areas carved into the earth up the sides of the pit. Two agents were grappling in the hot afternoon dust.

Chanyeol lingered at the edge of the pit, idly watching. He noted the swift, powerful movements of the one agent, who seemed to be coaching the other, the same girl Chen had been sitting with when Chanyeol first arrived. A foreigner, it appeared. She was boxing stubbornly but in vain against the strong, compact man. 

“Xiumin?” Chanyeol called out when he caught a glimpse of the man's face.

Catlike eyes rose up and considered him. The other agent paused, but Xiumin motioned at her to continue. They circled each other, boots scuffing through the dust, though Xiumin moved almost without noise. She lashed out at him – _too slow_ , the Combat agent in Chanyeol noted. Xiumin easily dodged, whirling around and landing a gentle blow on her shoulder as she stumbled past him – a warning. “Guarding hand up,” Xiumin said flatly. 

Chanyeol settled down on his haunches to watch and wait, shielding his eyes from the blazing summer sun with a hand. 

Xiumin was methodical in everything he did, and Chanyeol knew he would not be rushed, even by the sudden reappearance of an old friend. Though the other agent was clearly losing steam, Xiumin’s movements were steady. After a few more rounds, he signaled for a water break. As Xiumin walked over, Chanyeol saw the shining sweat coursing down his impressively muscled arms. He suddenly felt weak and pasty in comparison. 

Xiumin greeted him with a fist bump and a slap on the back, as if nothing had happened since they last saw each other. “Good to see you.”

“You too, hyung.” 

“You can stay and watch. We’re going to train for another half hour. I’m free after that.” 

With that, Xiumin walked back into the ring. Chanyeol was desperate enough for interaction that he wasn’t even irritated. He found a shady spot to lounge in while he waited, trying to “cultivate patience” or whatever it was Xiumin used to tell him he needed to work on. His leg bounced nervously, and he tried to hold it still with one hand. 

Finally, they finished. “I’m leaving now,” said Xiumin to the other agent, whose face was flushed as she huffed for air. “Planks. Pushups, ten sets of ten. Then stretch.” As he turned towards Chanyeol, she groaned quietly. Chanyeol didn’t envy her. Xiumin’s head snapped around. “You lack adequate upper body strength. This is how you get stronger,” he said matter-of-factly. She didn’t retort to this, and slowly lowered herself to the ground. 

Xiumin extended a hand to help Chanyeol up. “Come on, let’s get some refreshments.” Chanyeol perked up at this, and they left the sweaty agent to continue her grueling workout. 

Xiumin led Chanyeol past the mess hall to one of the underground offices and into a dingy break room, scanning his fingerprints for access. Surprisingly, the fridge there was stocked with lemonade, protein shakes, smoothies, and sparkling water. Chanyeol grabbed one of each. When he closed the fridge door, he found Xiumin staring at him. 

“What?”

Xiumin frowned. 

“Ugh, fine.” Chanyeol returned two of the drinks.

“I brought you here because I thought you might appreciate the coffee. They let me use this machine. It’s decent.”

“Oh hyung, you’re the best. Yes please.” Chanyeol chugged the lemonade before Xiumin could force him to choose between that and coffee. 

They iced their coffee and went outside to a secluded, shady area. Strangely, the coffee soothed Chanyeol’s nerves, and his leg jiggle presently faded. Xiumin was disconcertingly silent, but Chanyeol was used to it. 

Finally, Chanyeol spoke. “Are they doing tests on you too?”

“Yes. I was training soldiers at the military base nearby. They brought me here full time last week.”

“Is it just the three of us then?”

“Haven’t seen anyone else. Heard some were here.” 

Chanyeol tried to relax. He was desperate for information about Baekhyun, but that topic was now off limits with Chen, and he definitely didn’t want to make Tiffany suspicious. 

Xiumin savored his coffee one sip at a time, squinting into the distance. 

“Look, about what happened…” Chanyeol started.

“Nope,” was all Xiumin said. Chanyeol hung his head.

After a long silence, Xiumin spoke quietly. “Things will be better this time around. It’s nothing we can’t handle. Just a few tests, maybe some reassignments.”

Chanyeol hoped he was right. If he could trust anyone, it was Xiumin, stoic and devout. The agent was rumored to have a perfect loyalty score, and Chanyeol had always envied his certainty.

“Also, Chanyeol-ah… You look a bit out of shape. You should train a bit, given the situation. And I need a lifting buddy.”

****

Xiumin rewarded Chanyeol with coffee at the end of their training sessions. While Chanyeol’s natural response to a sudden lack of work had been to lounge around and wallow in boredom, Xiumin clearly thought it was a great opportunity to work out all day, every day. He woke Chanyeol up at the ass-crack of dawn for weightlifting sessions.

By his third day of workouts with Xiumin, Chanyeol might have considered swapping this form of social interaction for his earlier boredom and restlessness. After a long morning hike, Xiumin now had Chanyeol dragging a tire across the dusty earth in the training area. Chanyeol’s muscles screamed with every forward movement. Though his headaches had gone away, they were replaced by pain everywhere else. 

Having already run back and forth with an even heavier tire four times, Xiumin was cheering Chanyeol on while sipping his iced coffee. “You can do it! Rah, rah, Chanyeol-ah!” 

If Chanyeol didn’t know better, he might have found Xiumin small and cute. Xiumin rattled the ice in his cup at Chanyeol, who was struggling towards him step by arduous step. 

_Cheeky little sadist_ , Chanyeol thought as he reached one hand towards the other iced coffee Xiumin was holding for him, so close yet so far away.

****

_Flight. Time. Value. Light._ The familiar mechanical voice resounded through the room. Chanyeol was in his first psych eval after a week at the base. A fitted helmet containing electrodes encircled his head, and he was strapped into a reclining chair, hooked up to other monitoring instruments.

His eyes were closed, but he could hear Tiffany’s long fingernails clacking away as she typed on her tablet. He tried to focus on the mental visualizations that were supposed to accompany his free association. After the voice stopped, several minutes of silence passed.

“Alright, X-61,” said Tiffany. “We’re going to test your neural dust. Just relax. Take a nap. This will be a while.”

 _As if_ , Chanyeol thought. 

Tiffany was muttering to the tech. They were both clad in sterile white uniforms. 

“Ultrasound charging is complete, sir. Wireless network connected. Sensors ready to receive data.” 

“Initiate.” 

More clacking, as the two of them swiped through their tablets.

Chanyeol knew the neural dust was on because he started hallucinating. At least, that’s what it felt like. He knew the microscopic sensors were just running through different patterns of electrical stimulation. _That’s all it is_ , he thought to himself, gritting his teeth. _Just little fairies in my brain, jumping up and down on my neurons. Sparkly little neural dust fairies._

His thoughts grew more incoherent after that. He saw colors. The colors materialized into forms. The forms sharpened and became memories. 

He was Xiumin, crouched behind a snowbank with a rifle and holding his position as enemy soldiers advanced. He was calm, fearless. Bullets kicked up puffs of white in the snow around him. Bodies fell before him. Only one soldier kept advancing, wading through the thick slush. Xiumin’s gun was out of ammo. He threw it down into the snow and stood to meet the soldier. A pause, as if it were a strange greeting. Then their bodies crashed together, struggling, grappling – but not for long. With a burst of power, Xiumin reached around the other soldier and snapped his neck. 

As the body fell, white flecks of snow rose in a slow-motion spray. Chanyeol was flung out into the swirling white motes, engulfed. He could hear his own voice, faint as if from a distance, shouting. 

“Enough, turn it off!” Tiffany’s voice sounded far away. “X-61, hey. Calm down.” Her long fingernails dug into his shoulder. “What did you see?” she hissed.

“A memory,” Chanyeol gasped. “Not mine.”


	14. The Perfect Soldier

After the shock of his neural dust memory, Chanyeol was grateful that the next week of tests passed without event. The tests were slow, boring even – lots of lying around and waiting. Lying inside the MRI scanner, outside it, sitting on chairs, waiting as techs hooked him up to all kinds of sensors. 

Today, Chanyeol was especially fed up with the too-short sliding bench that rolled him in and out of the MRI scanner. He had to bend his legs at odd angles to keep his feet from dangling over the edge. He had just been in the scanner for an hour, and was now waiting while they looked at some data. The one tech in the room seemed occupied with some instrument, so he sat up from the awkward bench to spare himself further discomfort.

Through the one window in the room, he spotted none other than the agent who had been Xiumin’s unfortunate boxing partner the other day. She was standing in the hallway talking with Officer Young, showing her something on a large tablet. Unlike the techs Chanyeol usually saw, who wore bleached white medical scrubs, she wore a standard black agent’s uniform. 

Presently, Officer Young poked her head in. “Tech, come with me. Analysis room.” The tech scurried out, and the black-clad agent entered. 

Chanyeol had quickly lain back down when he saw Officer Young turning to enter the room. As much as he hated letting Tiffany win, it was best if he just seemed like an obedient test subject. True to her word, she was not afraid to find some irritating or painful test for him when Chanyeol talked back to her. She especially hated when he fidgeted inside the scanner. 

The agent quietly crossed over to the massive white MRI machine and knelt at its side, placing her toolkit on the ground next to her. Lying on the bench, Chanyeol craned his head to look. She was opening some panels in the machine while swiping through her tablet.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Just making sure the hard drives for backing up MRI data are functioning properly,” she replied without looking up at him.

“Who are you? You look familiar.” She was easy to spot, with her cropped hair and deep amber skin.

She paused and looked up at him warily. “I’ve seen you around the base. I’m Agent D-C-4.”

“I'm... C-A-61. Are you… on this project?” he asked cautiously. He wasn’t sure if she was just doing tech work or if she was involved further – he’d seen her with Xiumin and Chen, after all.

“… I am,” she replied with equal wariness. 

They stared at each other for a moment, then Chanyeol sat upright in sudden agitation. “So what’s the deal with these tests? What’s wrong with me? What did they do to me? Where is everybody else? How long will I be here? What are they going to do with us next?” All the questions that had simmered within him over the past few weeks came boiling out. 

Her thick, wavy bob fell in a curtain across her face, obscuring her expression. “61, I’m sorry, I don’t know. And I’m not supposed to talk to you about the project.”

“Well, why not?” Chanyeol demanded.

She sighed. “Look, at least stick your head in the machine so the security camera can’t see us talking.” 

Oh. Chanyeol lay back down and inched upwards a bit. He could hear the agent fiddling with the machinery. 

“So, why are you involved with the project?” he asked. His voice echoed around inside the machine.

“Because they asked me to be,” came the curt reply.

“I mean, what’s your role on the project? You’re the only agent I’ve seen in the lab.”

She was silent for a while. Chanyeol wondered if he could trust her, then realized she was probably thinking the same thing about him. 

Finally, she replied. “I’m training computational models on bioinformatics from the X subjects to identify patterns that indicate mechanistic pathways for physiological and cognitive deviations from the norm.”

“Umm… simple Korean, please.” 

“I’m trying to figure out how and why you’re different from normal agents,” she whispered.

“ _Am_ I different?”

“Aren’t you? Honestly, my job would be easier if I could just talk with you freely. But that could introduce bias into the analysis protocol by predisposing my model selection to pathways that fit my framework of internal validity.” He could barely hear her muttering as she trailed off. 

Chanyeol cleared his throat. 

“My apologies. I mean, sorry,” she said meekly. “I’ve only ever studied Korean academically… but never mind. What I mean is, we really shouldn’t be talking. About this.”

“Please…” Chanyeol’s voice cracked. Here was someone who was so close to the answers. He might not get another chance. “Just figure out what’s wrong with me. Help me be like the others.” 

He heard her replacing the panels, packing up her bag. The black uniform came into view. She stood at the foot of the rolling bench, back facing the security camera. 

“Be like the others… you mean you want to be an even more deadly killing machine?” 

Before Chanyeol could reply, she turned and left the room.

****

Chanyeol roared and dropped the dumbbell on the ground. He felt like beating his chest. After his second week of training with Xiumin, he’d already almost gotten back to his previous maximum weight for the bicep curl.

“Still got it,” he huffed.

Xiumin looked unimpressed. “Got what? A broken foot? You dropped that weight an inch from your toe.”

“You’re just worried I’m going to be stronger than you soon.”

Xiumin smiled serenely, looking not at all worried. 

As they worked through their routine, Chanyeol felt grateful for his hyung. Their regular training gave him something familiar to cling onto in this new place. Physically, it calmed him and prepared him for the battery of nightly tests. 

He also appreciated Xiumin’s companionship, though he worried about him as well. The strange memory sometimes flashed through his mind – and other memories, like brief snippets from a movie playing in his head. 

Chanyeol was not the type who could let things rest. Nobody else was giving him answers, and his curiosity finally broke through.

“Hey, Xiu… what have you been up to since… we last saw each other?”

Xiumin grunted as he struggled with the bench press. Chanyeol briefly wondered if he should have picked a different moment to bring this up. Xiumin rarely talked about the past. 

But after he got the bar back on the rack and caught his breath, the taciturn agent actually spoke. “Assignments on the northern border of New Joseon, mostly. I was there for a while.”

Chanyeol’s heartbeat quickened. Snow… “Like Siberia?”

“Yes.” 

“Why’d they send you there?”

“I volunteered. They needed personnel up there. You know how tense things are at the borders.” 

“But I mean, what were you doing there?”

Silence. Xiumin slid under the bar for his last set of bench presses. A few awkward moments passed. Chanyeol realized he was not going to get an answer, and tried another tack.

“What do you think about the tests here and stuff?”

“S’fine.” Xiumin panted, his muscles bulging as he pushed the straining metal upwards.

“I wonder if they’re gonna figure out what’s wrong with me.”

“Nothing… wrong… with you.”

“Well, you know what I mean. I’m not like you and Chen.” Xiumin was still struggling with the weights. Chanyeol continued, rambling. “Yeah, Chen is super cool. I just wish he wasn’t mad at me. Maybe he could come work out with us sometime. I mean, I’m not actually sure he’s mad at me. Just we haven’t really talked since I got here. Well, except that one time, but it was awkward. I miss him, you know.”

“Chanyeol.” Xiumin had finished and was sitting up, staring at Chanyeol.

“What?”

“Just talk to him.”

“Nah, I don’t wanna bother him, he’s with that girl now, he probably doesn’t wanna hang out with us.” 

“I work out with him most afternoons, before I work out with you.”

“Wait, what?” Chanyeol was offended. “Thanks for the invite, hyung.”

Xiumin shrugged. “You’re asleep in the afternoons. Anyway, he told me about it. I think you should just talk to him.”

“So you guys are just sneaking around behind my back? And gossiping?” Chanyeol was getting heated. 

Xiumin walked over to his gym bag and pulled out his tablet. 

“Hey, what did Chen say? Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m telling him to come over now so you guys can talk.”

“XIUMIN!” 

Ten minutes later, Chanyeol and Chen were sitting on a log in the thicket of trees outside the gym. Xiumin had disappeared once Chen arrived, leaving the two with no explanation. The thick summer air weighed down on their silence. 

Finally, Chanyeol spoke. “I’m sorry for freaking out about D-D-37.”

Chen sighed. “You can call her Yeri.”

“Yeri. I’m happy for you two. She’s cute.”

Chen’s lips curled upwards. “Yeah.”

“And they really approved it?”

“We worked together really well. She’s younger, but I swear she’s got more talent than me. I think the officer on the security upgrade project put in a good word for us.”

“That’s great, man.” Chanyeol briefly wondered if he could ever get approval for his relationship with Baekhyun, then chided himself for even thinking it, pushed the thought back down into the darkness of his innermost core. “So, uh… does Yeri know you’re Agent X-21?” 

“Officer X-21, actually. Yes, she knows that I’m part of a secret project, classified for officer-level only. Most stuff is classified, you know, so she doesn’t make a big deal about it. We’re all used to keeping secrets.” 

“And all the testing?”

“I’m still working on a project in the main offices. So far the testing has been pretty minimal. What about for you?”

Chanyeol combed his fingers through his hair, unconsciously scratching at where the electrode helmet always left itchy marks. “It’s been… fine. The psych evals are kind of rough.”

“Psych evals? They haven’t given me one yet.”

“So you’re doing mostly physical stuff?”

“Yeah, we’re working on honing my ability.” Chanyeol thought he detected a note of pride in Chen’s voice. 

“Can you… control it?” he asked in awe. 

“Pretty much. And it’s stronger now.”

“C’mon man, you have to show me.” 

Chen looked pleased, and Chanyeol felt the tension between them melting away. It was like the old days, when they were just discovering their abilities, testing each other with friendly competition.

He smelled static in the air, and there was a faint buzzing, crackling sound. Chanyeol gasped. Chen had lifted his hands, palms parallel, and a spindly blue-white arc of electricity danced between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh here we go!! I can't hide it anymore, it's the EXO powers! What do you think?


	15. Shock

_Sight. Sound. Might. Mind._ Chanyeol was hooked up for the psych eval again. He was dreading further testing of the neural dust. He had seen a fanatical glint in Tiffany’s eye this evening. 

He barely had time to steel himself before he felt his scalp begin to tingle. 

This time, it was his own memory. His eyes were open, but he didn’t see the sterile testing room in front of him. Bright colors danced before him and slowly resolved into an image of his sister, smiling down at him.

“No,” he grunted, lifting his hands to wave her away. Her sweet expression turned sad, but the vision disappeared. 

He swam in darkness for what felt like a long time. He felt a vague pain in his neck as his head slumped down towards his chest, but motor control was beyond reach. He heard his parents’ voices repeating his name. 

“Chanyeol. Chanyeol. Act like you’re paying attention, for god’s sake.”

“Sorry.” It was the cold rain and not their voices that reminded him where he was. His grip on the umbrella had loosened, and fat raindrops spattered his forehead. He lifted the black umbrella up again. Before them, a gleaming coffin was being lowered into the ground. He looked at his parents, to his left and to his right, their stoic expressions barely masking grief and fury. 

Yoo-ra’s funeral. His perfect older sister. It had all happened so quickly. The official notice of her death had come from the military just two days ago, and today the military had brought them to the arranged funeral in a somber black car. Yoo-ra was only 21, a few years Chanyeol’s senior, but she had been a promising major in the New Goryeo air force, a prodigy, the apple of her parent’s eyes. 

They hadn’t been allowed to view the body. “Try to remember her at her best,” an officer had reassured them, but Chanyeol knew they meant to spare his family from seeing the gruesome bits and pieces that must be wrapped up inside the coffin. 

Afterwards, Chanyeol tried to take his mother’s hand as they walked back to the waiting car, but she wrenched it away from him. The officer opened the car door for his mother. She drew herself up to her full height and glared at him. 

“You’ve taken my only daughter away from me. Yoo-ra was our shining star. Isn’t there some… compensation for the atrocity you’ve committed?” 

The officer avoided eye contact. “Ma’am, you’ll receive paperwork soon regarding payout of Major Park’s pension and other benefits.” 

“There’s nothing for bereavement? Our family, left in despair with no means of support?”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss. Your daughter’s service has contributed to the continued freedom and safety of New Goryeo.” 

Chanyeol’s mother sneered and climbed into the car. Chanyeol followed her in. 

His father stared blankly out the window on the way home while his mother sobbed quietly into a silk handkerchief. The windshield wipers of the self-driving car silently swiped away the rain.

“Eomma… I’ll support us.” Chanyeol spoke suddenly, with conviction.

She looked at him in confusion, tears and makeup smeared across her high cheekbones. 

“I made it through the initial screening for SM,” he continued. “They said I’m a promising candidate. Yoo-ra… Yoo-ra encouraged me to apply.” 

His dad didn’t even look away from the window. Chanyeol knew there was nothing he could say that would make his parents happy. 

It was that sinking feeling in his heart that brought him back to reality. Groaning, he clutched at his chest and straightened up in the chair. The room swam back into sight. He clenched and unclenched his hands, looking at them blur in doubles in front of him. 

“X-61? What did you see? Another shared memory?”

“None of your fucking business, Tiffany.”

****

Chanyeol stretched out on a rock and looked up at the stars. He hadn’t seen them in a long time, not since he’d moved to Shin-Seoul, where they were always blocked by haze, rain clouds, and light pollution.

He realized that as his physical condition had improved, thanks to training with Xiumin, his mental condition had deteriorated. Ever since Tiffany had re-activated the neural dust, he’d been having strange thoughts. The worst part was that he knew those thoughts weren’t because of weird brain implants. They were because of the sudden exposure to free time and fresh air in Seorak.

Chanyeol had turned in his uniform and officially resigned from SM more than a year ago. Of course, it was a soft departure, since they’d rolled him over to contractor status. He hadn’t told his parents. It shouldn’t matter to them, as long as the monthly cash kept arriving by discreet drone drop. 

He hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. Like now, his circuits had been a little fried by the neural dust, the constant infringement of his fellow X agents’ thoughts, desires, and memories into his own mind. He just knew he couldn’t wear the black uniform anymore, couldn’t do what they were asking him. Not wouldn’t – couldn’t. Something about the treatment the scientists had performed on him didn’t agree with his body, and more than any of the other X agents, he had physically deteriorated to the point where he felt useless to the project anyway. 

The daily beratement by Officer Young hadn’t helped either, as if she could needle an ability out of him with her cutting words. Chanyeol hated her even more because at certain angles, in certain light, she looked uncannily like Yoo-ra, and her toxicity had almost been worth bearing to feel close to his sister again. Almost.

Suho had helped him find a way out. Suho-hyung, so upstanding, uptight even, had turned out to be deeply involved in SM’s arms dealing business around the world. He had helped convince Director Lee that Chanyeol’s Armaments Class expertise would help him be a good dealer; that Chanyeol had almost been placed in Business Class too; and that Suho had reached a point where he needed someone on the ground in the filthy crime dens of Shin-Seoul where Suho himself could never go. 

And just when Chanyeol had gotten good at that, the powers that be had decided maybe he would be useful for his original purpose. But Officer Young and the techs and that agent D-C-4 still hadn’t told him anything about why the project had been restarted. Just endless tests and nothing to show for it. He thought he wanted to go back to Shin-Seoul, but after several weeks in dusty Seorak, imagining his plush penthouse gave him an itchy feeling, like a piece of clothing that didn’t fit quite right.

Most of all, he missed Baekhyun. The mischievous agent was the only thing that had ever fit right in Chanyeol’s life. He missed their carefree hook-ups at the academy, the ease of their affection and friendship, the trysts when their rookie assignments took them to the same cities, the frisson of excitement when they were both selected for the X Project. He’d said yes immediately to the project when he heard Baekhyun was doing it, hadn’t even thought about it. And oh, the suffering they’d shared after that – Chanyeol even missed that too. 

Chanyeol stared into the sky and imagined that he could send a message through the stars, as if they were little satellites in orbit that he could bounce his thoughts off of. Hell, it used to work when they were together, maybe it could work now. He closed his eyes and sought Baekhyun.

****

A shout rang out, and Chanyeol woke with a start. Had it been there in the silent mountain air, or inside Chanyeol’s head? He’d dozed off on the rock, exhausted by his earlier workout with Xiumin. He swung his legs onto the ground and stood up. He felt drawn towards the building nearby, the remote wing of the base where he’d been tested late into the evening. The lights were on, but according to Chanyeol’s tablet it was already past midnight.

Inside, he heard voices from the testing room. He heard agitation and fear, but something continued to draw him forward. 

From the window outside the testing room, he saw Chen. The gentle man’s expression was drawn tight, and he paced through the testing room. The glass of the window was thick, and Chanyeol couldn’t hear what was going on. An unfamiliar man in civilian clothes was strapped into a chair, seemingly unconscious. On a screen projecting into the room, Chanyeol could see Director Lee. The shadowy man’s thin lips were moving, seemingly talking to Chen, or maybe the few techs in the room. 

“How nice of you to join us,” a cold voice whispered next to him. Chanyeol jumped. Tiffany smiled up at him. She was wearing a lab coat and looked disturbingly alert and energetic for midnight. 

Chanyeol backed away. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to…”

“Stay,” she commanded. “I think you might find this interesting, given how uncooperative you were earlier today.”

Unwillingly, he turned back to face the window. His whole body felt leaden, anchoring him to the ground. 

Chen seemed to be arguing with the director. The director’s face flashed with anger, then went back to a controlled mask. Chen lifted his hands and sparks crackled around his fingertips. The unconscious man was waking up, staring at Chen in fear. Chanyeol saw that the man’s mouth was taped, but he was hooked up to instruments. Who…? 

As if in response to his question, Tiffany spoke. “We captured this New Joseon engineer during our last assignment with the stealth boat. He already spilled all his useful information, so now we’ve repurposed him.” She examined her long fingernails. “Ugh, I wish he’d just do it already. I’ve been so looking forward to this.” 

Chanyeol stayed silent, dread growing in the pit of his stomach. Chen turned towards the door, but Chanyeol heard the digital lock click shut. Chen again furiously gesticulated at the director when another projected screen appeared next to the video of the director. It was a low-quality, black-and-white video. Chanyeol squinted. It looked like a surveillance cam stream. He recognized Chen’s room, and saw Chen’s face crumple. He knew Chen was a fanatic about devices and privacy – it was his job. That’s why Chanyeol had trusted him to sweep his penthouse in Shin-Seoul to make sure there weren’t any bugs planted. 

Chanyeol looked more closely, and saw a sleeping woman in the frame. Yeri. The video zoomed in, and Chanyeol could just make out her peaceful expression. Chen strode over to the tablet projecting the video, reached out, and grabbed it. A spark of light, and the projected screen died. The techs seemed to be yelling, some backing away, some advancing towards him, but Chen just turned and gently laid his hand on the shoulder of the New Joseon man. He closed his eyes. Everyone fell still, except for the man, whose limbs suddenly shot out, rigid, his chest arching forward and straining against the straps that held him in place. Chen removed his hand, and the man fell back limp into the chair. Chanyeol thought he saw smoke rising from the man’s temples.

****

Tiffany hadn’t stopped Chanyeol when he ran back out into the cool, silent night. He kept running until his legs and lungs ached, struggling uphill on a gravelly slope. He felt nauseous.

His tablet suddenly vibrated in his pocket. Warily, Chanyeol pulled it out. Unknown sender. He opened the message. 

_I got someone to open an encrypted channel for me. It’s one-way – don’t respond. Chan, baby, I’ll be there soon. -BBH_

Chanyeol didn’t have any energy to ponder the wonders of this coincidence. He only felt fear now, and the terrible clarity of how exactly SM could – and would – manipulate them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late for my weekly update this week >.< Last week was insane with work and life events, then this week I am on vacation. I was in a place that didn't have good internet for a while, which was... actually really nice. I even got some good writing done - I've almost finished this entire fic! Anyway, I hope you readers are doing well and staying safe - and thank you to my new subscribers, you are appreciated, and I hope you enjoy the ride ^^


	16. Ice Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent D-C-4 starts to learn about the dark fairy tale behind the X Project.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're backtracking in time a bit - this chapter starts around the same time as when Chanyeol gets called in to Seorak base.

Officer Young was an exacting boss. Not only was she was a micromanager, she clearly expected you to be behind the scenes, quiet and subservient. During your first few days on the X Project, you had daily meetings with her and Director Lee. At some point, he had departed for more Very Important Things, but Officer Young remained in charge of the team of medical and engineering techs on the project – and you. 

The X Project was conducted in a vast underground building in a remote wing of the base. You marveled at the design - a low, grassy hill concealed most of the building, the entrances only given away by a series of floodlights and security cameras on posts. Each day you hiked there and back from your barracks. 

Officer Young gave you tasks in chunks, but you still weren’t sure how it all fit together. She also made you pore through medical journals and textbooks. Each day it was something new to read. Neuroscience journal papers from a few years back on implant technology. A high school biology textbook chapter on muscle cells. MRI user manuals. You pored through them in your lonely, windowless office. Mostly though, you managed and organized biometric data coming from lab tests on an unknown group of test subjects. 

The true nature of the lab tests was revealed to you when Officer Young summoned you to the testing room one day, your tablet screeching at you until you responded to her. _Instrument failure_ , her message had read. _Come fix it NOW_. 

You blanched as soon as you walked into the testing room. There was a young man immersed in a clear tank of water, lying down, unmoving, eyes closed. Was he dead? Officer Young and the other techs seemed unfazed by the situation. 

“All the equipment is waterproof,” she huffed to you. “It’s not the instruments on him, it’s something on the receiving sensor. I don’t know, just fix it.” 

You tried not to look at the young man, who didn’t have an oxygen tank but wasn’t surfacing for air. Were they torturing him? No, this was the testing room - but you still felt queasy as you tried to focus on your work. 

The problem was fixed quickly enough – Officer Young hadn’t tried the old trick of turning something off, then on again – and you checked some of the instruments by the tank to make sure they were sending data to your computer. You nervously chanced a glance at the tank. He must be alive – despite the pallid skin, there were bubbles around his nose and mouth. 

Officer Young rapped the tank loudly. “Yah, Xiumin,” she shouted.

You stared, forgetting what you were doing. 

After a few moments, the young man opened his eyes and slowly sat up. Surfacing, he looked pale, dazed. He braced his hands on the side of the tank and made as if to stand up, but Officer Young stopped him. “No, this is the critical part we need to observe,” she said. He froze, then sat heavily back down in the water. 

Officer Young gave you a pointed glare. You hurriedly packed up your toolkit and headed for the door, stealing one last backwards glance at the young man. He was taking deep, steady breaths now, and his cheeks had gained some color. He looked alert, even. 

You hurried out of the room before Officer Young could reprimand you.

**** 

The next day, Officer Young called you to her large, spare office. You were worried she might be mad about the previous day, when you’d lingered too long by the tank.

“D-C-4, please, sit.” A command disguised as a request. You tried to arrange yourself comfortably on the angular white furniture, to no avail. 

She poured herself a glass of sparkling water from a bottle on her desk and sipped delicately at it while swiping through her tablet. The office was so quiet you could hear the ice cubes clinking in the glass. 

You jumped when she finally spoke. “I’ve been sending you data from control subjects as well as test subjects. Your database management protocol is now complete, yes?”

You nodded.

“Now, find the differences. I won’t tell you which subjects are which, or how they differ. You figure it out. Understood?” 

That seemed straightforward enough, but there was just so much data. “Sir, the papers you’ve had me read…”

“Those may provide hints for what sort of metrics to look at.”

“It’s just… I don’t have much expertise in biology.”

“You took computational biology as an elective at the academy, no? That should suffice.” 

“But… are there going to be other agents assisting with the analysis?”

She narrowed her eyes at you and set the glass down hard. “Do I detect whining? Are you, an SM agent, afraid of a bit of hard, lonely work?” 

You shook your head vigorously, but she ignored you. “Agent, this project is highly classified, and it is of utmost importance to our esteemed director. Now let me tell you a little story. I’m only going to say this once, so listen closely.” Her voice was clipped and precise, like she was telling a cruel fable with a harsh lesson. 

“Once upon a time, there was a small scientific research company that developed a proprietary technology that we at SM decided would be useful for enhancing the capabilities for our agents. We acquired the company. The scientists came to work for us. Then, they got cold feet. They lacked the discipline of SM personnel. They did not cooperate. Eventually, they became a liability.” She took another delicate sip of water. Her black eyes bored into you. You’d never noticed how dark they were compared to her ice-blond, slicked back hair.

“Now, you know me. I’m a trained psychologist. I assisted those scientists, supported them, but eventually, I knew they were beyond reach. We could not make them useful to us. They made… threats, and since security is our priority at SM, measures had to be taken.” Your insides twisted with dread as you thought about the measures you knew she meant. 

“Now, those scientists…” – you could hear the distaste in her voice – “… well, we had to get rid of them rather quickly, and they did not leave us precise instructions to follow. We made do with what we had, but questions remain about how the technology – or should I say, series of procedures – works in practice.”

She started clacking her fingernails on her glass. “That’s where you come in, D-C-4. Your analytical skills and experience with devices is appreciated. And before you start to think you’re hot shit, let me just tell you that your relative social isolation in the years since you graduated from the academy is an asset for this project.” You flushed, but she wasn’t wrong. She’d done your psych eval, after all.

“We require discretion,” she purred, “so, no, there won’t be other agents helping you. It’s just you, me and my techs, and our subjects. And D-C-4 – take good notes on what you do each day, in case I ever have to replace you.” 

She smiled coldly at you until you got the hint and left her office.

**** 

You took an early lunch break after your conversation with Officer Young, but you didn’t feel hungry. Instead, you went outside for a walk. Your chilled skin welcomed the summer heat, and you wandered idly through the trees until you found a small, sunny clearing. You sank down into the dry pine needles and bowed your head, trying to make sense of her words and the task ahead of you.

Someone cleared their throat, and you jumped. The young man from the water tank the previous day was sitting in a sunny spot across from you, his face illuminated but his black uniform blending in with the shadows. You’d been too distracted to notice him. 

“Sorry… sorry to disturb you, I’ll go…” You hastily stood up and brushed the pine needles off your uniform, but he motioned at you to sit back down. 

“You’re helping with this project,” he said. “I saw you.”

“It’s classified,” you blurted out. “I can’t talk to you about it.” Fear of god and Officer Young made you hew very close to protocol today.

He arched an eyebrow. “But we can still _talk_.”

“I suppose.” 

But then you both sat in silence for a while. You wondered if he expected you to say something more, so you finally said, “Nice sunny spot, huh?”

“Yes. I was cold.” 

No fucking kidding, you thought, remembering him in the icy water that day, but you just said, “Me too.”

“I’m Xiumin,” he said. “Double Combat Class. Number 99.”

“D-C-4.”

“Ah, you’re C Class too? Want to fight?”

“What?” You were taken aback, thinking you’d misheard.

“Would. You. Like. To spar. With me.” Maybe he thought your Korean wasn’t that good. 

“Oh, um. I don’t know...” You were at a loss for words.

“It helps me unwind. From all that.” He motioned in the direction of the dark, frigid underground offices. “And C Class agents should always be ready for action.”

“So they say…”

“Great. Meet me at the training pit tomorrow at 1700 hours.” He stood up and stalked away before you could respond.

**** 

Of course, Xiumin turned out to be an infantry instructor in the New Goryeo military, a boxing fanatic, and all-around exercise fiend. It quickly became an afternoon routine for him to beat your ass into the dust of the training pit.

A few days later, you thought you might be starting to get the hang of it. You’d managed to duck a few of his vicious hook punches, and for the first time you actually felt light on your toes, a phrase he’d kept repeating but until now had meant nothing to you. 

You circled each other in the dust of the shallow ring. You had come to appreciate this odd, taciturn agent. It had been a long time since you’d practiced intensively with someone like this, and you couldn’t help but think of Sehun. You had never wanted to be assigned to the C Class, but the instructors at the academy must have noticed how much the two of you enjoyed sparring together, physically mismatched in every way but somehow able to keep up a good volley. 

Xiumin moved like a cat, spinning around and knocking your arm out of the way as you tried to block him, his glove landing in your ribs. Your breath huffed out and you stumbled backwards. 

“Don’t let your mind wander,” he reprimanded you. 

By the time you’d finished your sparring session, he’d landed half a dozen solid blows on you. You kept coming back to the pit each day not out of any inherent love for fighting – you still felt like an imposter in the C Class – but because it was indeed an excellent way to unwind from the fear and uncertainty that plagued you inside those cold, sterile rooms. He was holding back less, but you were warming up to the pain. It added texture to your long, sedentary days at work now.

There was also a spark of curiosity that drove you. Officer Young had told you not to talk with the test subjects about the project, but she hadn’t said anything about sparring with them. Ever since you’d first seen him in the testing room, you’d been analyzing Xiumin’s bioinformatics. The sparring sessions didn’t yield official data, of course, but you’d started to notice unusual things.

**** 

The next day, Officer Young summoned you back to her office for your first end-of-week report. She wasted no time getting to the point.

“Agent. I read your report. Summarize what’s special about case #3.”

Case #3 was Xiumin. You’d already guessed that, looking at the bioinformatics from that subject and thinking back to the cold tank of water.

“Sir, he has a sustained, elevated red blood cell count as well as hemoglob – “ 

She interrupted you with a wave of the hand. “Not the data. The physiological implication.” 

“Extraordinary ability to oxygenate muscle tissue? Possible sympathetic control of heart rate and blood flow to different organs?” You weren’t sure what she was getting at. You thought you’d put everything in the report. 

“The _implications_.” She said it in English for good measure. You felt stupid. 

“Well, given what you’ve told me about the procedures he underwent, some kind of directed genetic editing technique that increased production of certain hormones like erythropoie – ”

Again Officer Young cut you off and rubbed her temples, muttering something about communication skills. She sighed. 

“Look, let’s just talk straight,” she said. “I’m satisfied with your report, but I just want to think through how SM can use his abilities.” You sat up, surprised. She fixed you with an intense stare. 

Weaponizing these abilities? Of course. Of course that’s what they would do. 

“I think that… with these physiological traits… he can induce a state like hibernation,” you said haltingly. “It would probably make him resistant to some injuries… maybe also hypoxic conditions, and cold.” 

“Yes, that was my conclusion too last time.” She had a calculating look in her eyes.

“Last time?”

“Case #3 is our agent X-99. We understand X-99’s abilities best, from when we first induced them. It did inform how we deployed him in the field after that. I just wanted to make sure his abilities were intact and that we could replicate those results.”

He’d introduced himself as C-C-99 to you though. Did that mean the other X agents, Baekhyun and Sehun…?

“What other cases did you identify?” Officer Young continued. 

You tried to focus on your work from the past week. “Case #14 is clearly special,” you responded. “Though very different from Xiu – I mean, X-99. I saw the CT scans from the past year…” You paused, because what you’d seen was so extraordinary. 

“Go on.” 

“Well, there was clear growth of some kind of tissue spanning the hemispheres of their body. The microscope images you sent, the muscles cells look like… electrocytes.” You trailed off, because it was too strange to be true. 

Officer Young’s eyes glittered. She looked slightly deranged now. “Could it be used in combat? What voltage would that tissue eventually be able to discharge?”

“I hadn’t done that analysis… but I could come up with a guess,” you admitted.

“Good. Do that. And what about case #8?”

You flipped through the notes on your tablet. “I thought that was a control case.”

Officer Young cackled. “No, that’s our precious X-61.” The gangly agent who had accosted you in the testing room. So he was an X agent too. “I’m sure there’s something there, the scientists absolutely doused him,” she continued gleefully. “Come up with some interesting tests for him and continue your work. I’m pleased. I’m going to Shin-Seoul tonight to share the data and convey these results to the director.”

You nodded, unsure whether to feel elated that she liked your work, or terrified for what you were contributing to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still committed to posting once a week! It's tough because I've been so busy, but I've gotta finish this fic... 
> 
> Anyway, now that we're back to D-C-4's perspective, I wanted to share a [recent sketch](https://64.media.tumblr.com/e3f45edc357d1c8e04d9aad1fafb2f11/51b00394f3b8f20d-f3/s2048x3072/93a33b7d3278d96685dfe3a2819f7ed97d92ffa9.jpg) I made of her. More of her backstory in the next chapter.


	17. (Interlude: Five Years Ago)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years ago, during those sunny academy days, it was only too easy to forget the faraway horrors of war.

You were trying to find his weakest point. The point where you could break through.

You had lost in hand-to-hand combat, circling each other in the dust, using just your bare fists. Of course you had no chance. Sehun was taller and stronger. But that’s how they assessed you. Forced you into contests you couldn’t win, and watched how you failed. 

Now, Sehun was holding up his practice shield and watching you as you paced through the dust around him. This assessment was about getting past your opponent’s defense. He never fell for your feints, though. You could feel the officers’ eyes on you. 

Two to one, sixty seconds left in this round. Your last chance to score a point and keep the contest going. You could see fear in Sehun’s eyes too. You knew he wanted an easy win, to end it early and spare you both the physical misery of these grueling tests.

All you had to do was break through and land one clean blow. You were shorter and it felt natural to strike low, but he’d easily dodged your slides. Your legs were scraped raw from the second attempt of trying to take his feet out from under him with a vicious sweep. Sweat trickled down your legs, burning as it reached the wounds. 

There were two rocks to his right, one larger than the other. You backed up slightly, and then took off towards him, winding up as if you were going to try to sweep him again. He crouched slightly to use the shield to protect his legs. But instead of sweeping, you used your momentum to carry you up the rocks like they were stairs, launching yourself into the air and twisting down at him, your arm hooking out. As you’d suspected, he wasn’t good at blocking something higher than him, and your fist connected solidly with his shoulder. He stumbled back but didn’t drop the shield. 

“Point,” said one of the officers lazily. 

Sehun lowered his shield. You met his eyes and saw disappointment… but the corner of his mouth twitched into a slight smile only you could see.

**** 

In the end, Sehun won 3-2. There were plenty of cuts and bruises between the two of you, but nothing that wouldn’t be better in a few days. Together, you limped to the bath facilities to wash up and get ointment on the cuts, especially your skinned legs.

“Not bad for a first combat assessment, huh?” said Sehun. “I’ve heard some cadets get asked to leave right after.” 

“Yeah, I guess they haven’t found a reason to kick us out yet.” 

“Well, I barely passed my D Class assessment last week. Your notes helped.” He had wheedled them out of you the night before the test. 

“It’s not happening again.” 

Sehun was about to protest when you heard a whimpering noise coming from up ahead. Someone was perched on the edge of an old well, rocking back and forth and crying.

“Joy?” You ran over to the distressed girl. “What happened?” 

As you approached, she winced. “Agent Kwon caught me again,” she sobbed. 

“Oh, Joy.” The friction between Joy and Agent Kwon was well known, as the young cadet had gotten quite good at triggering all of the disciplined agent’s pet peeves. “What was it this time? Another food fight?”

“No... I… re-programmed a security camera drone…” – you gasped – “… to fly over the boys’ shower stalls,” she finished, hanging her head.

You heard Sehun snort. You glared at him. 

“Joy, that’s pretty impressive, actually,” you said. 

She nodded. “Took me weeks to find a good hack.”

“Did you access the footage too?” you asked eagerly. Sehun coughed. “I mean, I can see why Agent Kwon would be really mad, Joy,” you continued. “That’s a pretty serious breach.” 

Joy started sniffling again. “She said that because I have such a filthy mind, I’d have to clean the bathroom floors every day this week.” She held out her hands. “It’s only day 1, and my hands are already blistered raw.” 

You had been on cleaning duty once, and remembered the rough sponges and harsh cleaning solution. “Well… we’re heading to the facilities now if you want to come with and get some bandages?”

Joy scowled. “No way, she’s probably still there, defending it against me. Like a yappy guard dog.” She sauntered off. 

Sehun made a strange noise. You looked over at him, and he was wrinkling his nose up. Was he about to sneeze? No, he was laughing. His eyes turned into little crescents as his body shook with guffaws. Surprised, you couldn’t help but laugh too.

Sehun wiped a tear from his eye, and then winced. His temple was red from falling during your grappling bout. 

“C’mon, we should put some ice on that.” 

“I can’t believe Joy sometimes…” he giggled as he followed you down the path.

“Yeah, you don’t even know the half of it,” you said, remembering her infamous nickname for your present company’s rear end. Sebooty.

You were still giggling as you arrived at the bath facilities, where Agent Kwon was indeed posted outside, looking as surly as a guardian stone lion. 

“What is it?” she snapped.

“Nothing, sir,” you both replied in unison.

**** 

The assignment of agent Classes was the closest thing to graduation you’d have. You weren’t officially an agent yet – you had at least a few years of working as a rookie before being promoted, if you made the cut – but it felt momentous nonetheless. Your year of graduating cadets had changed out of military uniforms and into the black outfits of SM agents before assembling in the auditorium. There were fewer people than when you’d started, of course. Some couldn’t handle the physical demands, others the challenging coursework.

As you stood tall in the black uniform, which felt stiff and rough across your shoulders, you wondered if your parents would have been proud. You knew they had wished to see you in graduation robes. They had scrimped and saved to buy you the square cap and billowing black gown for your high school graduation. But they’d never gotten to see it. On good days at the academy, days like this, it was easy to forget you were here because of what you’d lost to the wars. 

Sehun nudged your shoulder, bringing you back to the moment. No families could attend this event, of course, but you imagined he also felt the emptiness all the same. 

It was almost your turn to go up on stage and be assigned your primary and secondary Classes. You’d hardly been able to sleep last night, going through the possibilities based on your performance and predilections, but now in the moment your mind was blank. The dark sea of instructors and already-assigned rookies standing in the audience stared expectantly up at the stage. 

Ahead of you, Joy had just been assigned D-D, to the snickers of some in the audience. She rolled her eyes and snatched her SM insignia from Agent Kwon, flouncing off the stage.

Suddenly, it was your turn. “Go on,” Sehun whispered from behind you. You tentatively climbed onto the platform, where the head instructors of the academy were waiting. They read off some of your rankings and test results, and you could already tell what your primary Class would be.

“D, primary,” said the announcer. Your nickname was D, so it was only fitting that now it was official. No surprises there.

Agent Kwon stepped forward. It was customary for someone to say a few words about the cadet and their assignment. “Despite this cadet’s extraordinary aptitude for D Class skills, we believe that her talents can be more broadly applied by assigning her to a different secondary Class.” Your heart rattled around in your chest. What could it be? Armaments, for all the time you’d spent on the shooting range with Sehun? 

“C, secondary. Congratulations, Rookie D-C-4.” Agent Kwon continued on to say how rare and valuable D-C agents were, and some platitudes about your promising future, but you just gazed out at the audience in shock. Several of the officers seemed to be nodding as they clapped. Shouldn’t they be shocked too? How could they assign you to C Class? You weren’t strong enough, fast enough, skilled enough. You looked back at Agent Kwon, and she clapped while motioning for you to continue off the stage. Right. Numbly, you proceeded down the other side of the platform and into the audience. 

Now it was Sehun’s turn. Your nervousness hadn’t abated at all. As Sehun climbed onto the stage, a male officer praised his ease with hand-to-hand fighting and weapons. “C primary. A, secondary. Congratulations, Rookie C-A-94,” announced the officer. Sehun clasped his hands behind his back and stood proudly, looking every inch the perfect agent.

**** 

Afterwards, the newly minted rookies burst out of the hall and into the springtime sunshine, excitedly chattering about their assigned Classes. You walked as if in a trance, clutching the tablet they’d issued you and repeating your new identity to yourself. D-C-4. You played around with the syllables on your tongue. It had come out eerily similar to the name you were born with.

Darshini. That was what your father had named you. His roots were in India, and he wanted you to remember that. But you had quickly dropped your name when you came to the SM academy. He would have hated that, but the phantom guilt was still less painful than hearing your name butchered everyday. No one could pronounce it, but they also didn’t really try. So you’d quickly adopted the nickname D. Most cadets took on nicknames, anyway - it was handy to have a code name, of course, in this line of work. 

But somehow, fate had returned your name to you. “Four” in Korean was _net_ , with a barely aspirated ending. And New Goryeans tended to lisp the C. You’d felt a tug in your gut when Agent Kwon announced your new identity, like it was already familiar to you.

A high, sweet voice interrupted your reverie. “D-C… oh, I forgot already. What number were you?” Wendy, one of Joy’s friends, caught up to you, along with several other excited rookies.

“Four,” you answered. 

“Ooh, that’s a low number,” whistled Joy.

Sehun approached the group. 

“He’s 94,” you blurted out before they could say more about your number. 

“Yeah, I’m the first C-A-94,” he said, sounding proud. Sehun had a higher number because C-As were a relatively common Class combination. 

“But yours is just in the single digits,” Joy continued stubbornly. Agent numbers counted upwards in general, and agents retired with their numbers. That is, their combination of Class and number could never be used again, as a testament to their career. 

“D-C agents are just relatively rare,” you started to say, though you knew there must have been more than three before you. 

Wendy elbowed Joy. “Sorry,” Wendy said. “I hope we didn’t make it weird. Personally, I think it’s an honor to have an old number. You’re… you’re carrying on the work.” Sehun nodded in agreement, but you avoided his gaze. 

In fact, a low number meant the prior agent with that Class-number combination had died in action, and they’d recycled their number to you.

As familiar as it felt, the single-digit number was like a countdown, reminding you that you were more likely than not to die on the job, now that you were Combat Class. At least it would be with Sehun.


	18. Case Studies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is back in the present day)

Today, in the sparring ring, you could tell Xiumin was holding back even less than before. His blows rained down on you, and all you could do was keep your gloves up and head down. Your shoulders ached from resisting the barrage. Last time, he’d reminded you not to let your mind wander. As brutal as they were, these sessions gave you focus, and you appreciated that. You’d once thanked him for his time, but he’d just waved you off and muttered something about needing at least four workouts a day. You were sure, given what you’d seen in his data, that Xiumin could fight like this for hours, but he always ended sparring with you after exactly half an hour. You knew he was working out with other agents, so maybe what he said was true. 

Sure enough, thirty minutes after you’d started, Xiumin lowered his gloves and nodded curtly at you. You’d gotten used to his abrupt departures - only the honor code held you to the other exercises he assigned you. You sank to the dusty ground as you watched him walk away, slowly lowering yourself down to begin doing crunches. 

The afternoon heat was dissipating. A shadow crossed over the sun, and a chilly wind picked up, dancing across the sheen of sweat on hands you’d just freed from their gloves. You wondered if autumn was finally coming. 

Suddenly, you picked up the sound of a helicopter. Looking out across the small valley where the training pit was nestled, you could see the helipad not far away. The helicopter descended swiftly, then slowed to hover above the helipad like a great, dark bird of prey. 

It wasn’t unusual for helicopter traffic to come and go, delivering critical personnel and equipment. But now, a large crowd came swarming out of the building nearby – black-clad agents but also medical techs in scrubs. Was that a stretcher? Curious, you stood up and began walking towards the commotion. 

The helicopter landed, kicking up a wall of dust. Shielding your eyes, you pushed forward against the wind. The air currents carried shouts and commands. A hollow-eyed agent emerged from the helicopter, climbing out with the assistance of others. You recognized that look. Then the stretcher was brought up to the helicopter, and an unconscious agent was transferred onto it. From behind the medical techs, you could see his long arm flop out of the stretcher, the black uniform ripped in several places to reveal white skin. The uniform looked wet, its black color meant to conceal blood. They strapped him onto the stretcher, and as the techs stepped away, you caught a glimpse of the slack, pale face, eyes closed as if in repose. 

You broke into a run. The noise and dust from the whirring helicopter blades washed over you, the swarming crowd blocking your way. You pushed forward, shoving, about to let out a cry when suddenly someone caught you around the waist, pulling you back. 

“SE…” you screamed, but a hand clamped over your mouth. 

“Shhh,” a voice whispered in your ear. “Let them take care of him.” Long fingers loosened, but a strong arm held you tight as you struggled. The smell of sweet cotton suffused the dust. 

Baekhyun had returned. And there on the stretcher disappearing inside, Sehun.

****

You were too distracted to feel fear at being back in Officer Young’s stark office. She had summoned you for a quick check-in. You perched on the edge of an uncomfortable chair, tapping your foot nervously. You'd barely slept. No news of Sehun since last night, when Baekhyun had finally returned to the barracks. Sehun was in an induced coma, standard for speeding up agent recovery, having suffered massive blood loss. “He’s stable,” Baekhyun had said, but didn’t offer anything beyond that. Wouldn’t or couldn’t, you didn’t know.

“Stop that,” snapped Officer Young.

“Huh?”

“Tapping your feet. It’s getting on my fucking nerves.” She was reading through the report you’d prepared about your analysis that week. You tried to hold still until she finished. You kept thinking of Sehun’s deathly white face. A month ago, you had just come to terms with the fact that one of you might die without seeing each other again. Now, faced with this distinct possibility, the regret and remorse you’d thought you’d put to rest had flared up with a vengeance. 

Officer Young tossed her tablet back onto her desk with a clatter. “Your reports are fine so far. You’re making quick progress,” she added begrudgingly. “By virtue of the study design, you should be kept in the dark a bit, but I will let you in on one more thing.” She leaned forward and steepled her fingers. “We had the scientists design protocols to induce two types of abilities: physical abilities and what we call perceptory abilities, based on the tissue targeted. We selected an equal number of agents for each ability type.” 

You tried to focus on her words and not think about Sehun. Physical abilities. Targeted issues. You nodded. Both Xiumin and the other exceptional case you had seen had changes to their muscle cells. Perhaps perceptory abilities targeted the brain? 

Officer Young continued. “So that’s one more thing I want you to discern in your analyses. I’m going to Shin-Seoul tonight to meet with the director. Get ready for some long days once I’m back tomorrow. We’re about to have data on the group of X agents that just arrived.” 

Your heart beat a little faster. 

“Should I… start running bioinformatics on any of these recently arrived agents?” You tried to sound casual. 

Her eyes narrowed. You were afraid she could hear your heart pounding in your chest, but finally she just nodded. “There is one agent in the medical ward. I suppose it could be informative to monitor his recovery. Just tell the techs.”

She swiped over a clearance file, then dismissed you with a wave of her hand.

****

You practically sprinted to the ward, going as fast as you could without attracting attention. _Please, please, let him be OK_.

Somebody in scrubs stopped you, but you wordlessly showed them the clearance on your tablet and they let you continue. There weren’t many rooms, as agents didn’t usually bear injuries that could be survived. You found his room at the end of the hall, the only occupied one, sterile, fluorescent light pooling out.

Looking through the small window in the door, you were suddenly afraid to go in. The elevated bed stood in the middle of the small room, accompanied only by an IV drip. 

_How lonely_ , you thought. No flowers, no stuffed animals. No one to bear witness to a recovery - or a death. That wasn’t right. 

You pushed the door and stepped in, crossing over to the bed. Of course he was unconscious, but you couldn’t help but tiptoe, as if the slightest breeze might disturb him. 

Sehun’s skin looked translucent against the thin hospital gown, and asleep like this he appeared so much younger, almost like when you’d first met him. Now that you finally had a glimpse into the X Project, you felt something like pity for what he’d been through. You had been foolish, selfish to think you somehow deserved an explanation for his disappearance two years ago. As agents, even knowing he was alive was a luxury. Your anger at him for your last petty argument evaporated, leaving only fear. 

“What did they do to you?” you whispered, taking his hand, turning it over. Was it still the same flesh and bones you used to know?

Suddenly, the door swung open. You wrenched your hand back and snapped to attention. Two black-clad agents entered, a man and a woman. The man ran to Sehun’s bed, hardly noticing you. His face contorted, and the woman held his arm, comforting him. 

He looked up at you, and his anguished expression vanished. Surprised, you recognized him as the dead-eyed agent who’d come off the helicopter. He drew himself up and stared down at you with a composed, princely air. 

“And who are you? Do you have clearance to be here?” the man asked haughtily. 

The woman, who was breathtakingly beautiful, with doll-like features, stepped back and glared at you appraisingly. Were they also X agents? 

“I’m just… helping an officer with some data collection,” you stammered in reply. 

They continued to glare at you. Clumsily, you found the data port in the monitor next to Sehun’s bed and connected your tablet. For a few excruciating seconds, the devices synced, the soft beeping the only sound in the room. The woman tossed her long, silky black hair and sighed delicately. You made a show of putting away your tablet and picking up your toolkit as you backed slowly out of the room, stealing one last glance at Sehun.

****

You skipped dinner that night.

The metal frame of the cot pressed into your back. You stared at the ceiling as the barracks slowly went dark.

You rolled over in the cot. You’d been too listless to even climb up to your own bunk. A paused game of Sushi Smash jingled brightly at you from the tablet on your desk, but you hadn’t heard it for hours. 

The emptiness of the barracks pressed down on you, as it did every night. 

The Sushi Smash jingle faded away as your tablet automatically tuned in to the SM nightly news. You heard Taeyeon’s quiet, precise tone begin. 

Tonight, Taeyeon told the story of the legendary agent Leeteuk, which at this point was basically an SM fairytale. The very first C-B agent, after the agent Class system had been designed. C-B-1 selflessly took his secrets to the grave after being compromised and cruelly tortured while undercover in the New Joseon military. The model agent, a hero to SM and New Goryeo. 

The story made your stomach churn, and you lurched out of the cot to turn off the tablet. 

A suffocating silence fell over the room. 

It was nothing new. This was how you’d gotten through the past few years. Outside of work, you were an empty shell, catatonic to pass the hours until you could get back to your computer. 

Officer Young’s begrudging words of praise danced around in your mind. An officer’s praise would usually bring you satisfaction, soothing the constant itch of needing to validate your career choice. But today, Sehun was fighting for life, maybe because of his involvement with this project. Once again, he had gone somewhere you couldn’t go. And had you pushed him along that path - this time and back then? 

No, it was foolish to think you had control over anything. You and he were just molecules bouncing around under the constraints of SM. SM set the temperature, the volume, the very bounds of the box you lived in. The ultimate physical law. 

If everything was out of your control, then maybe nothing was your fault. 

Your questions were like vague shapes in the dark – you were scared if you reached out to touch them, to find their form, they would disintegrate. As fragile as Sehun in the hospital bed. 

Maybe you only wanted him to recover so that you could finally talk to him, have closure. Yes, this must be true, and you hated yourself for your selfishness. He wasn’t your teammate, he wasn’t even your friend anymore. More than two years later, what could you claim to know about him? 

You heard a faint pounding on the door, but it took you a while to register it. Slowly, you sat up. The pounding continued. 

_Baekhyun_? you wondered blearily. He rarely returned to the barracks these nights. You crossed to the door and opened it. The tall, gangly man practically fell into your room, cursing. 

“X-61?” You fumbled with the light switch and turned it on. 

He straightened up and shut the door behind him, planting himself in front of it and glowering down at you. In the sudden brightness, you could see his hair was disheveled and his eyes were red. He stepped towards you. You suddenly sensed his much larger frame, the muscle he’d packed on since you first met him. 

“What is it?” you asked hesitantly.

“ _You_. You need to tell us what’s going on.” His voice was accusing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You KNOW what I’m talking about,” he snapped, all snarl and glower in contrast to that day you’d met him in the testing room, when he’d pleaded with you for information. “The fucking X Project.”

“I would if I could…” You stepped back, but he continued to advance.

“I don’t give a shit about the rules. You need to tell me – tell us – everything you know.”

“Okay, okay.” You put your hands up, trying to look placating. He had the crazy eyes. “It’s just, I probably don’t know any more than you do, alright?”

He kicked the chair away from the desk you were now backed up against. It clattered loudly across the empty room. 

“Bullshit,” he rumbled. He grabbed your arm, and his grip was painfully tight. Your eyes flickered to the tablet lying on the cot, too far away to reach. “You’re coming with me. Right now. To explain this.” 

“X-61… it is X-61, right? I know you’re upset, but you need to calm down, OK? We’ll talk this through.” Below the desk, your fingers scrabbled to open the drawer where you kept a pocket knife. 

“Yes we _will_ fucking talk it through. So let’s get going.” As he started to yank you forward, you managed to get a grip on the knife. You flipped the blade out and flashed it in front of you as a warning for him to let go. At the same moment, you felt hard metal press into your side. You froze.

He was right up against you now, staring down at you. “I don’t fucking think so,” he growled, and the gun dug into your ribs. “Drop it.” 

The knife hit the ground with a dull thud. 

“Now move.” Keeping your hands up, you walked slowly past him towards the door. The skin on the back of your neck tingled as if it could feel the cold gun an inch away.

# End of Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, new characters! Can you guess who they are?
> 
> Wow, it's already the end of Part 2! I can't believe it.. I'm one chapter, interlude, and epilogue away from finishing the ENTIRE story, which means I haven't had as much time to come back and edit - praying everything holds together in future chapters. Wish me luck! I'm going to try to finish writing the whole thing these next few days, and then I'll have more time to edit and get ready for... PART 3!!! I appreciate my readers so much... thank you all for making this such a rewarding journey, you're THE BEST.


	19. Part 3: Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai doesn't know what to do with D.O.'s trust.

# Part 3

## Prologue

Not long after the director called, Kai had gone to see D.O. again. It wasn’t far by train. He paid in cash, wore gloves.

He ducked under the long tendril of ivy that was now draped over the little archway in the bombed-out border town. It was almost dusk, and the city had cooled down significantly. Once he reached the courtyard, he tapped out a rhythm with his foot and waited. 

After a while, D.O. came through a gate in the back. He smiled shyly at Kai and joined him at the table. Kai felt miserable, helpless. Baekhyun would’ve known what to do. Chen could’ve rigged up some looped footage or false leads. But he, Kai, was just a failed assassin in over his head. 

“What is it, Kai?” D.O.’s low voice made him look up. 

“The director called me today. He’s having me report to Seorak. For more tests. The X Project.” D.O. didn’t say anything, just looked down at the ground. His brow furrowed. “Apparently everyone else is there already,” Kai continued cautiously. 

“Everyone?” D.O. asked skeptically.

“Well, probably not. But I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t have a choice, and… D.O… the rest of the agents on this assignment are going to keep hunting you.”

D.O. reached over and patted his arm. “It was good to not run for a while. Thank you for that. But I’ll be OK. You don’t need to worry about me.” He smiled at Kai reassuringly, but it didn’t make Kai feel any better. In fact, it made him feel worse.

Kai had regretted his decision at first. How many times had second thoughts run through his head, that day in the courtyard with a loaded gun in his hand? But D.O. had never expressed any fear or suspicion of him, even though Kai could have ended it so easily at any point, now that he knew where D.O. was. What was it Director Lee had once told him, at the beginning of this assignment? _The prey will be happy to live without the predator, but the predator cannot live without its prey. This is your purpose, Kai._

But now D.O.’s trust in him had become a precious, brittle thing he desperately wanted to protect. He could not betray that trust by endangering the former agent even further. If Kai was going to do this, he wouldn’t half-ass it. 

Kai ran his hands through his hair in frustration as he thought of the terse, relentless agents he had been working with. Fiercely competent Seulgi. Precise, cold Yoona. “I know you’re good at evasion," said Kai, "but they might… they might try… never mind.” It was too horrible to think about. Kai stood up abruptly and circled the immaculate little courtyard. “Look, why don’t you come with me?”

D.O. followed Kai’s pacing with his eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean. You know I’m not going back to SM.”

“I know. Not like that. But maybe you can hide near Seorak. Maybe the safest place is right under their noses.” At this dangerous thought, Kai’s agitated tics kicked in. He spun on his heels as he paced, rapidly clenching and unclenching his fists. He knew other people found it highly disconcerting, but he couldn’t help it. 

“I could… consider that,” D.O. said. He looked up at Kai, and Kai felt himself falling into that open, trusting expression.

“I have an idea,” said Kai. He’d been thinking about it since the day when they finally met face-to-face, the day when a cup of tea had defeated his gun. “But it’s just an idea. I’d… I’d definitely need your help to make it work,” he admitted. He envied D.O.’s D Class skills. He envied D.O.’s stillness, hands resting neatly on his knees. He envied D.O.’s certainty about right and wrong. 

Was it envy, or something else? 

D.O. nodded. “Tell me.”


	20. Voices in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chanyeol herds Agent D-C-4 to a mysterious midnight meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with a double update! Hope you enjoy!

The full moon and twinkling stars provided just enough light to move comfortably in the darkness. After being herded for some time by the tall, intense agent, you realized he was headed towards the waterfall. At this, you felt some relief. He wasn’t trying to abduct you out of the base or anything crazy. Well, not crazier than this. 

“You can put the gun down. I’m not going to make a break for it or anything,” you said quietly. 

He grunted. You glanced over your shoulder. He had put the gun back in the holster at his hip, but his hand was still resting there. 

“Look, this whole project, what they did to you, I’m sorry. But I swear, I just found out about it and I barely know… ”

“No. Not until we’re with everyone.” 

Everyone? The other X agents? You continued walking in silence, now wondering what awaited you at the waterfall. 

Sure enough, when you arrived, you saw four figures seated near the pool, the dull roar of the waterfall raising a mist that enshrouded them, obscuring their features.

“Chanyeol, you look agitated. Feeling trigger happy?” A figure rose, detaching itself from the large stone they had been perching on. You recognized Baekhyun’s voice. 

Chanyeol ignored him. He again had the gun out, and he shoved you forward. “Over there, with your back to the cave. No sudden movements.”

“Chanyeol, that’s not necessary,” someone else interjected. The voice sounded familiar.

“Yeah? She fucking pulled a knife on me.” 

Baekhyun laughed. “Well, no harm done in the end, right? We’re all here, secure location, cover of night and all that. Let’s just talk. No need to get all worked up.” He was trying to sound conciliatory, but you could hear the tension in his voice. 

“I scrambled the location tracking on our tablets and made sure there’s no surveillance in the area,” said the second voice. “But we should go a little further into the cave, just in case.” 

You backed in to make room for the five figures. It was so dark that you still couldn’t quite make out who was there, besides Chanyeol and Baekhyun. 

A sudden spark of light illuminated Chen’s face for an instant. It had seemed to come from his outstretched hand, sparks of light bursting from his fingertips. You placed the face to the voice you had just heard.

“You…” you breathed. “You’re the one with the electrophagic skein growth!” 

You heard Chen sigh. “So is that what’s happening to me?” His voice was resigned, dull.

“Electro-what?” Chanyeol’s hoarse voice demanded. 

“At least do it again and give us some light in here,” said a third, bored voice.

“Xiumin, is that you?” You could have sworn it was the voice of your laconic trainer. “What the hell is going on?” You relaxed slightly now that it seemed to be mostly people you knew, but also reminded yourself that they were extra-deadly agents with a murky agenda. 

The figure that seemed to be Xiumin scooted towards you. “Look, let it be known that I did not think this was a good idea.” 

“No light, Chen – an aerial drone could spot us.” That was a fourth voice, unfamiliar to you but somewhat bossy-sounding.

Your eyes were very slowly adjusting to the darkness, and you could see Baekhyun lean forward.

“Well, agent, seems like you’ve got Chen figured out. What about me, then?” His eyes briefly glinted in the dark.

“I don’t… I haven’t seen any physiological data on you.”

“Heh. Well, you’re observant enough. Take a guess.”

You swallowed. You had entertained the thought, but it only made sense now that you knew more about the X Project. “You have enhanced vision... in low-light settings?”

“Correct. Well, mostly.”

You thought back to the fireworks on the beach in Sokcho, how Sehun had claimed Baekhyun was still able to see you departing on the skiff. Or, embarrassingly, how he’d spotted you spying through the crack in the wall between your rooms in the barracks. “And… better than 20/20 vision, probably. You can adjust to contrasts more easily or something.” You blushed even more at the realization that he could probably see you blushing. 

Chanyeol interrupted. “What about me? Have you figured out my ability yet?” he demanded.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t,” you admitted.

“Chanyeol’s power is super hearing,” volunteered Baekhyun. “See his huge ears?” You leaned forward, trying to get a closer look at the tall agent’s prominent ears, when he whacked Baekhyun on the head and you realized the joke. 

Chanyeol swore. “Look, I know they did something. They’ve been messing with my brain. Our memories are all mixed up. Our preferences, what we like… it’s changed, I know it has.”

“Ya, I think Chanyeol’s right,” Xiumin cut in. “I feel like they kinda made us gay.”

“Not true, some of us have always liked men,” said Baekhyun lightly, looking over at Chanyeol. Chanyeol spluttered and swore some more. 

“Aha, so it’s your fault then,” said Xiumin, though he sounded not at all perturbed.

“I’m pansexual, not gay, so don’t try to pin it on me,” Baekhyun shot back.

Xiumin turned back to Chanyeol. “Well then Chanyeol, he who smelled it, dealt it.”

“I wasn’t talking about SEXUAL preferences…”

Fortunately, the bossy voice spoke again before you could get any more confused. “OK, besides discussing highly classified, _personal_ information, Chanyeol got us together for a reason, so let’s just get this over with as quickly as possible so I can go back to sleep.” 

“Whatever you say, Suho-hyung,” yawned Xiumin. 

“That bitch Tiffany is in Shin-Seoul tonight, so this might be our best chance to talk openly among ourselves for a while,” declared Chanyeol.

“Language, Chanyeol!” the agent named Suho grumbled. 

“D-C-4, this is our oh-so-gentlemanly project leader Officer C-B-1, now X-1. Or as we call him, Suho-sshi,” said Baekhyun. You raised your eyebrows at the prestigious number. It seemed to suit his haughty tone. 

Suho ignored Baekhyun’s jab. “Look, I get that some of us are upset,” he continued, “but I’m not sure if Chen’s accusations about how SM is handling the X Project are warranted.” 

More sparks flew from Chen’s fingers, and you could see Suho’s face in the momentary light. You were surprised to recognize the princely agent from Sehun’s hospital room earlier that day. 

Chen sounded strained. “I told you, they threatened me. I didn’t want to believe Chanyeol, but it’s true.” Chen’s voice grew muffled as he covered his face with his hands. “They’ll use anything to manipulate us.” 

Xiumin, who was next to Chen, threw his arm around the distressed agent, and the two dark silhouettes merged into one.

“Everything they put us through last time… I think they did it on purpose. To see how we’d react. And we stayed together, didn’t we?” Chanyeol’s deep voice broke through the silence. “That’s what they wanted. Shared suffering. Mutual reliance. We’re easy to manipulate.”

“We didn’t exactly stay together,” said Suho. “We all went our separate ways, after...”

“But we tacitly condoned the project. We all kept working with SM, let them keep track of us, and now, bring us in,” Chanyeol replied.

You felt like a fly on the wall. There was so much you didn’t know, and your head was spinning trying to guess what had happened.

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? What are they going to do with us now?” Suho turned to you. “And that’s why you’re here. To tell us what’s going on.”

You put your hands up defensively, though probably no one except Baekhyun could see. “Look, like I told X-61, you all know more than I do. Like how this all started. I don’t know anything about it. Maybe if you can just tell me…”

Chen started to say something, but Suho cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. We just want to know what happens next.”

You thought back to your exchange with Officer Young earlier today. “Officer Young…” Chanyeol hissed when you mentioned her name. “Officer Young is having me identify your abilities based on data from the tests you’ve been doing,” you continued. “At first, she was really strict about research protocol to make sure I could correctly identify the abilities. I guess… she wanted to make sure you all still had them? But lately she’s been focused on having me try to figure out how… how they induced the abilities in the first place.”

The agents were silent. Finally, Suho spoke. “I thought we’d moved past that. I thought it was just about figuring out how to best deploy us in the field.”

“She told me that these next few weeks, I’m going to work with the techs on the neural dust programming.” You turned to Xiumin. “We’ve also recovered the genetic editing technique that was used on your kidney tissue,” you said apologetically. Xiumin stiffened and sat upright, separating himself from Chen. 

“Did she say anything about the scientists?” Xiumin asked quietly. You knew which scientists he was asking about – the ones who had made them into X agents. 

“I… I’m sorry.” You were scared to say anything more. 

No one else spoke. The tension in the cave was oppressive.

“Luhan said they killed themselves,” Xiumin said flatly.

You shivered inadvertently, and wrapped your arms around yourself. You remembered Officer Young’s cold dismissiveness, her ambiguous language on how they had “taken measures” to deal with the scientists.

Baekhyun stood up. “That’s enough. I think she’s shared what she can. We don’t want to jeopardize her any more by dragging her further into this.” 

“It’s her fucking job, so she can deal with it,” said Chanyeol. 

Suho also stood up. “Look, I think we don’t know enough about what’s going on. I get that everybody is upset, and rightfully so. This isn’t being managed as well as it could be by SM.” 

Chanyeol snorted. “You can fucking say that again. You’re an officer, why don’t you fix the management?”

“Language, Chanyeol.” Suho continued. “I say we wait until everyone else gets here, and then re-convene. And hopefully this agent can and will share more information then.” He stared imperiously down at you. 

“I… actually agree,” Chen said haltingly. “For now. If that’s OK with you, D-C-4. You can trust us.”

“How many of you are there anyway?” You didn’t know whom you could trust, but at this point you had no choice. All of your professional fates were now tied together. You thought of Sehun alone in the hospital room, floating between life and death, and you resolved to do anything that could help him. 

Suho sighed. Baekhyun interjected. “You know Sehun. There are… were… others, but we don’t know who else SM will be bringing in. At least one more, for sure.”

The others murmured in assent. “He’d better get here soon,” grumbled Xiumin. 

“Alright, then,” said Suho. “The plan is no plan. We just see what happens, and assess the status of things once Kai arrives. Thank you, Chanyeol, for convening us,” he said with excessive formality, as if you were all in a conference room instead of squatting in a hidden cave.

“Uh, what?” said Chanyeol, his voice rising. “No, I think we are about to get royally FUCKED by SM and I want to find out how to get out of here as soon as possible. There, I said it.” 

Again, quiet fell over the other agents. 

“What exactly do you mean by royally fucked?” Suho asked delicately.

Chanyeol crouched down. “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about this, and I think we should leave.” 

“You don’t know. Hmm.” Suho paused. “Well, I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary on the business side. I think this is just a check-in, maybe the first of many in the course of our careers. So we’ll weather this challenge, as we always have.” He looked around at the other agents. 

“Fine,” said Baekhyun, looking away from Chanyeol.

“I hate it, but I can’t leave Yeri…” Chen whispered. An image came into your head of the girl with honey-colored hair who seemed to work closely with Chen. 

“Whatever you say, Suho. You’re the leader,” Xiumin said in a flat voice. 

Now you could see everyone turning their heads to Chanyeol. For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Then he scrambled upright. “Fine then. I’ll keep rotting away here until you all wake up. But by then it will be too late.” He turned and stalked off, loudly crunching through the rocks and dirt. 

The rest of you sat in stillness, listening to him go. Baekhyun turned to follow him, but Suho stopped him. “We should leave separately, with some time in between, to avoid any suspicion arriving back at the base.” 

Baekhyun gestured towards you. “We’re in the same barracks. I’ll help her get back there.”

“Alright. Go now, then. We’ll wait a bit.”

You turned to go, taking one last look at their silhouettes. Chen and Xiumin were slumped together. Only Suho sat tall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to Naomi Alderman's book The Power for the idea and biology behind Chen's ability. A fascinating and upsetting book - I recommend it if you, like me, are interested in, well, power dynamics.


	21. The X Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun opens up about the X Project, but so many mysteries remain..

You followed Baekhyun back to the barracks as best you could in the darkness. Clouds had formed and covered the bright moon. He led you silently, not bothering to slow down for you. You wondered what the landscape looked like to him. Was it like night vision? Or as colorful as the daytime? You couldn’t help but wonder how his eyes had changed, what a retinal scan might reveal. 

No, don’t think of him as a subject. Friend, not research specimen. 

You stumbled, and Baekhyun whirled around to steady you. Once he saw that you had your footing, he started to turn around again.

“Baekhyun – ” 

He halted. “Yes?”

You had so many questions. Would he speak to you? It had been weeks since you had really seen him. How, when, why had the X Project started? Who was Luhan? What had happened to Sehun? 

Instead, you found yourself asking, “How have you been? These past few weeks?” He seemed different now, somber, guarded.

He paused for a moment, then kept walking, but a little more slowly. “It’s been fine,” he said quietly. “Worked nights, mostly, some days. Several assignments. All successful.” You recognized the usual platitudes agents shared with each other when they weren’t allowed to say exactly what they did. 

“I’m glad.”

“And you?”

You weren’t sure what to say. Cold testing rooms, solitude in the barracks, streams of mystifying data. “It’s been a whirlwind,” you said finally. 

He made a noise of agreement.

You wanted desperately to get past the small talk. To see the friendly, playful Baekhyun who used to visit your room to pilfer snacks. But tonight he was so closed, so quiet. 

“I want to help you all,” you said resolutely. 

He raised an eyebrow at you. 

“I mean, I think I could maybe help Sehun… or be more useful to you all if I understood what’s going on,” you continued hesitantly. 

“Maybe. Maybe not.” 

You tried to parse through everything that had been happening. “Sehun disappeared almost two years ago. Or so I thought. Is that when the X Project started? Please. I… I really want to know.”

He sighed. For a moment, you thought you’d pushed too far. But then he spoke. “Since Chanyeol decided to drag you into this, I guess we owe you that. Just… keep it to yourself, obviously.”

He took a breath and began to tell the story.

“I think they chose us because we were all C primary agents who graduated at the top of our classes at the academy. You know how the wars are going… they needed more manpower. Agents with combat skills and field experience. Especially now that New Joseon has started using that stealth tech everywhere. So SM revived an old super soldier program. You know, the dumb shit the CIA did back in the day, that we imitated during the First Korean War. That China pushed forward when they were the first country to allow genetic editing on humans.” 

He paused, as if to dredge up a murky memory. “We were… so excited to be picked. You know, everyone had their own reasons for agreeing to it.”

You thought of Sehun. On the brink of being assigned to a team with you, then disappearing for something you’d assumed must be far better than that mundane fate. So you’d been right. He’d left because of the X Project.

“But they also had their reasons for picking us,” Baekhyun continued. “Like Suho. C-B-1. The smartest agent the academy had seen in ages, but also incredibly athletic. He inherited the number of the legendary agent Leeteuk. They say he’s on the fast track to being a director.” He shook his head. “Of course, getting picked felt great. But we didn’t really know what we were getting into. It started with more training. We did everything together, had our own barracks. This was at the Jeju base - but a secret location on the far side of the island. It was… grueling. But we all wanted to be the best. Looking back, I think Chanyeol was right. You know how militaries use shared suffering to bond soldiers together, right? Well, they did more than that too. It started with the neural dust implants.” 

He touched his temple, where you imagined there might be a fine scar hidden under his hair, a scar they all shared. “They separated us for some parts… I’m sorry, I wish I knew more,” he continued. “But we didn’t really know what was going on. The procedures were… painful. Confusing.” He fell silent for a while. 

You caught up to him and tentatively entwined your arm through his. From what you knew, the genetic editing procedures were grotesque, invasive, targeting so many different tissues deep in their bodies, even in their brains. Or eyes. 

Your touch seemed to bring him back to reality. He squeezed your hand and let go, sighing. “I know you could use the details of all that, but we were pretty out of it at that point. I know I was under anesthesia for at least a few days, and in and out of consciousness for longer. When I woke up, I learned that… that the scientists who had run the procedures on us were dead.”

So what Officer Young had insinuated was true after all. “What happened?”

“Murder, suicide, does it matter? The point is, SM lost valuable knowledge. But they still had us. We went through endless tests. More training. Learning how to work together, how to make use of our abilities… it wasn’t always bad.” Baekhyun trailed off.

“But then… something else happened, didn’t it?” You could sense it, seeping out each of the X agents. The stench of trauma. 

Baekhyun sighed. “We were very close, but we didn’t always see eye to eye. Some of us… wanted out. I couldn’t believe it when they told us, really. Because everything we’d done up to that point had been together. You have to understand, it’s like we were neurologically programmed that way. But they still wanted out.” He paused. “One escaped. You’ve heard of him - the defector.” That explained why SM was going to such great lengths to hunt down the defector - he was a proprietary technology. 

“But another one…” Baekhyun continued, “He tried to escape too, and… he died.” 

You were horrified. Baekhyun’s expression was hidden under his bangs. “How…” you whispered.

“I’m sorry, but he… it’s not my story to tell. We soldiered on. But the pain was almost physical. My thoughts were scrambled for a while. Sometimes… I can’t tell which memories are mine and which belong to someone else.” His voice broke, and he pressed a palm to his forehead. He drew a deep breath and seemed to be gathering himself. When he next spoke, it was in a clinical, detached tone. “After that, it wasn’t the same. They had us do some assignments in units together. But there were ongoing issues. You know Chanyeol… he’s obviously incredibly talented, but they never identified any specific enhanced ability. And some of us just seemed to work better alone. So that’s where we are today. Just kind of used when we’re needed. But I always knew they’d want to try again,” he finished bitterly. 

“I’m sorry,” was all you could say. You wished you hadn’t asked. You wished you could go back, all of you, back to simpler times. When there was no need to question your work. When following rules was the easiest choice. “I should’ve just… learned to live with the questions.” 

“Eh, that could be said for all of us. SM especially. But Director Lee never met a thread he could resist pulling. He kind of… snapped. After D.O. defected. It was personal, to him.”

The director was terrifyingly relentless. No wonder he had re-started the X Project, when the first round had been far from perfection. But now, you were almost back to the barracks, and the conversation had to end. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry… I won’t bring it up again,” you said. 

“Well, I did figure out why you look familiar.” 

“Huh?”

Baekhyun tapped his temple. “Probably Sehun’s memories. His affinities. It’s why I picked up Xiumin’s coffee-drinking habit. Like Chanyeol said, some of our preferences got a little mixed up.” Baekhyun grinned. “It’s probably why Sehun likes me too. Must’ve gotten that from Chanyeol.”

“What are you saying about me?” A familiar voice rumbled through the darkness before you had a chance to parse through Baekhyun’s words, and a figure detached itself from the wall as you neared the barracks. The automatic light flickered on, illuminating Chanyeol.

“Just how handsome you are,” said Baekhyun. He turned to you. “Well, agent, thanks for putting up with us.” His somber air had disappeared, and he was back to his cheeky self. 

Was it for Chanyeol? you wondered. 

“I’m going to have to escort Chanyeol-ah to his quarters, so don’t wait up for me.” He winked. 

So that’s where he’d been going at night. Despite Baekhyun’s sudden change of mood, you couldn’t rid yourself of the waves of unhappiness that had rolled off of him as you had been walking back to the barracks. It was heartbreaking, but you also felt a growing anger for what SM had put them through. For whatever had happened to Sehun, leaving him lying unconscious in the medical ward. Anger was unfamiliar as of late, an emotion you thought you had sealed away for the sake of working efficiently. But now it made you speak impulsively. 

“Wait…” you called out. “Maybe if I figure out how your abilities work… how your connections were induced… I can help you all go back to normal.” 

They stopped. Chanyeol took a step toward you, again looking slightly menacing. “I think you’ve misunderstood, agent,” he growled. 

“I feel more myself than ever,” Baekhyun cut in, encircling an arm around Chanyeol’s waist and pulling him back. “You see, D-C-4, we’re OK with what we’ve become. It’s just that we would rather be free to use what we have how we want.”

For a moment, their expressions matched, two pairs of downcast eyes mirroring melancholy, two gentle mouths downturned with sorrow. Then Chanyeol grabbed Baekhyun around the shoulders possessively, and they turned and disappeared into the darkness.

And you were left even more alone and confused than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been so long since I updated -__- I haven't been feeling very well and unable to look at screens for very long without getting sick. I think I'm getting better and will be able to get back to regular updates soon... thank you to anyone who is reading, I appreciate you so much!


	22. Obedience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chanyeol and Baekhyun deal with the fallout of the midnight meeting, and Xiumin faces a loyalty test.

“Finally.” Chanyeol tumbled into bed, pulling Baekhyun on top of him. It had been a long night, and his anger was fading into exhaustion. 

“I’m sorry they didn’t listen,” said Baekhyun. 

Chanyeol stared up at the ceiling. “I knew they wouldn’t.”

“Then why go out of your way to have us all meet like that? It was pretty risky.” Baekhyun’s long fingers tangled through Chanyeol’s hair.

“When you and Sehun came back all injured – ”

“Sehun’s the one who’s hurt, not me,” corrected Baekhyun. 

Chanyeol eyed Baekhyun, who for all his incredible vision couldn’t see his own dark circles and hollow cheeks. 

“We haven’t all been together in a long time,” Chanyeol sighed. “At least there’s that. And I just needed to… plant the idea.”

Baekhyun lifted himself up on an elbow. “What idea?” he asked cautiously.

“Running away together, of course.” Chanyeol tried to say it lightly, because they both knew what had happened the last time someone tried to run away.

“You talk too much.” Baekhyun covered Chanyeol’s mouth with his. 

Chanyeol let his exhaustion carry him into oblivion. He counted the seconds as he held Baekhyun against him. Every second was a second too long. He should’ve pushed him out of his bed from the start. They were going to be caught, found out, and then they would be manipulated like Chen and Yeri. Chanyeol would be the perfect bargaining chip, the useless X agent, just there to keep Baekhyun in line. But a cruel thought nagged at him - would a threat to himself even mean much to Baekhyun? The free-spirited agent always danced just out of Chanyeol’s reach, just beyond his understanding. 

That was why, even though he knew he should, he didn’t let go just yet, arms wound around Baekhyun’s waist, lips pressed against his slender shoulder. Sometimes, the urge to possess Baekhyun overwhelmed him, burning him from the inside. 

But first, he had to get something off his chest. That was what this night had been all about. Chanyeol wasn’t the type to conceal his thoughts anyway. 

He sat up. “I’ve been selling some stuff for SM. Weapons. Some weird new tech.”

Baekhyun slid away from him and stared into the dark corner of the room that was probably light as day to him. “Yeah, I know.”

“I did arms deals with _New Joseon_. Assault weapons. Enough handguns to rob all of Shin-Seoul. And these freaky black panels that can scramble any signal.”

Baekhyun looked up at him skeptically. “Do you want me to absolve you of your sins or something?”

“No. I just wanted to tell you. I thought you wanted to know what I do.” Baekhyun was quiet, so Chanyeol continued tonelessly. “Now they’re having me find a buyer for the stealth tech. From what I understand, we stole it from New Joseon, and now SM is manufacturing it for profit. Rogue states. Mafia families. Militant groups. I’ve sold to all of them. Now I just have to find the highest bidder.” 

Baekhyun still said nothing. His expression was unreadable, holographic in the dim light. 

“We’re making the wars harder to fight. Prolonging them.” Chanyeol’s voice rose. “And what about you? Suho’s in on the sales. Chen helped manufacture the tech. Are you in on it too? Who are you spying on? Who are you spying for?” Chanyeol knew he was getting riled up, but this was his greatest weakness. The unknowability of Baekhyun.

Slowly, Baekhyun reached for Chanyeol’s hand. For a moment, his face contorted in misery and fury. His slim fingers wrapped around Chanyeol’s rough, thick palm. “I’ve done bad things too,” he said. His voice shook as he squeezed Chanyeol’s hand. “Really bad things.” Chanyeol froze as Baekhyun’s walls came down, if only for an instant. 

Then Baekhyun locked eyes with him. “Please. Make me forget.” 

It was barely a whisper, but Chanyeol understood. It was one thing for Baekhyun to show up at his door each night, hollow and exhausted, and throw himself at Chanyeol, at oblivion. It was another thing entirely for him to ask Chanyeol like this, his voice shaking, his eyes beseeching. 

A clarity came over Chanyeol. It was time to dispel the fear and uncertainty. “I’ve been saving something for you,” he said in a low voice.

Chanyeol rose from the bed. Baekhyun’s eyes followed him, vulnerable and expectant. He walked over to his bureau, pulling out a black scarf he’d brought in case he was stuck at this godforsaken base until the weather got cold. Or in case of other things, ideas he toyed with alone late at night.

“Close your eyes,” Chanyeol said. 

He meticulously folded the scarf until it was a thin band, then returned to the bed where Baekhyun sat. Chanyeol could see his eyelashes fluttering, knew Baekhyun desperately wanted to see. Chanyeol lowered the makeshift blindfold until it covered Baekhyun’s eyes. Baekhyun flinched when the soft fabric touched his skin. Chanyeol knew how vulnerable Baekhyun’s eyes were, how powerless he must feel with them covered. 

“Will you trust me?” Chanyeol asked, holding Baekhyun’s cheek in his palm, tracing the hollow with one thumb. 

Baekhyun stilled. Chanyeol’s heartbeat quickened. “Yes,” he finally said in a small voice. 

Chanyeol finished tying off the blindfold, raked his hands through Baekhyun’s silver hair that looked so beautiful against the black fabric. He let his rough caress continue down Baekhyun’s torso, then up again, under his clothes. Baekhyun arched into Chanyeol’s touch, turning his face up towards him, his lips glistening as his mouth seemed to beg for Chanyeol’s. 

Chanyeol stood back and slowly unbuckled his built. At the sound of metal on fabric, the swoosh of the belt being pulled through its loops, he saw Baekhyun lick his lips. Chanyeol reveled for as long as could in the sight, allowing himself to believe that they could trust each other, if only for these dark moments. Was it trust, or just another mad rush towards oblivion?

**** 

Xiumin was still tired from the midnight meeting when he reported for a regular psych eval the following afternoon. He took the edge off with a sour-tasting black coffee from the shabby break room in the remote bunker where the tests usually took place. The caffeine sharpened his mind, but he knew he could maintain perfect control over his other vitals.

In contrast to the break room, the testing room was pristine and gleaming. Xiumin let the techs fit him with sensors, relaxing into the chair and waiting for the officer who would administer the test. Usually it was Officer Young, but today, he heard an unfamiliar shuffle as someone stepped up behind his chair. 

“Hello, X-99,” said a quiet, precise voice. It was Director Lee. 

Xiumin angled his head back so he could see the director glowering down at him. “Hello, sir. I didn’t know you would be here,” he said nonchalantly. 

The director moved around in front of him. “With the X Project back in full swing, I wanted to drop by to make sure everything is proceeding... smoothly.” The director coughed pointedly, and the techs hurried out of the room. “I also wanted to see how the psych evals are going these days. You’ve always done _so_ well, I thought I’d come see Officer Young’s protocol in action.” 

“I’m flattered, sir,” said Xiumin. He felt the sensors tighten around his arms. 

“Please begin with a lie,” said the director, swiping through a mounted tablet. 

Xiumin kept his gaze fixed on the director. “I harbor regular thoughts of sedition against SM,” he said in a flat voice. He saw the director’s lips curl downwards, but a soft beep announced that the calibration had worked. 

“Alright, now I’ll ask you a series of short questions,” said the director. “As always, please relax, and answer as quickly as you can.”

Xiumin took a breath. 

“Do you have positive, negative, or neutral feelings towards resuming the X Project?”

“Positive.”

“Towards seeing the other X agents?”

“Neutral.”

“Towards the testing we’ve been doing?”

“Neutral.” 

“Towards the overall direction of the X Project?”

“Positive.” 

“Towards the death of your fellow agent in the early stages of the X Project?”

Xiumin felt his heart try to skip a beat, but he quelled its tremor. A steady pulse. A level gaze. “Neutral.”

The director tutted. “It was such a shame. He would have been the most powerful of you all. Unprecedented skill with hypnotism, we barely understood it, but he could make you see anything - even the impossible, the unreal.” Xiumin tried not to fidget as the director watched the panel where Xiumin’s vital signs were being read out. “Do you remember,” the director continued quietly, “when he made us all see floating tangerines on the beach at the Jeju base?” 

The director’s question hung in the air for a moment, and Xiumin remembered the smell of salt in the air, the tang of the fruit, how sweet it had tasted, sticky against their lips… “Yes, sir,” he said heavily. “I remember.” 

“An amusing moment, yes. But it took real skill. I’ve always appreciated agents who are attuned to the power of psychology. But in the end, that confidence, that... boldness did him in, you know.” The director sighed, but to Xiumin’s relief, he ended his rant about Luhan and turned back to the tablet. “But on to more recent things. How have you felt about the recent solo assignments we’ve had you do in Chinese Siberia?” 

“Well, I completed all the assignments successfully.”

“Did you find them difficult?”

“Not really.” 

“What about the physical aspects of the assignments?”

“I don’t mind the cold.”

“What about the mental aspects of the assassinations?”

“It’s my duty for SM,” Xiumin said without missing a beat. 

“What do you feel when you kill somebody?”

Xiumin considered this. “It’s like checking off an item on a list.” Yes, that was the best way to describe it. 

The director looked pleased. “Agent, I’ll confess I’ve always been proud of your practical approach to our work here. You may spend a little bit more time on these answers. What motivates you?”

“I like the feeling of a job well-done. Whatever it takes. However long it takes.” 

“Now that you’re training soldiers at the military base nearby, you’ve taken on quite a bit more leadership responsibility. What’s your approach to leadership? Your leadership style?”

Xiumin thought for a moment. “Well, you have to lead by example, sir. I participate in all the drills with the soldiers. I try to be honest with them about the challenges they’ll face, the dangers of our work. But that we’re in it together.”

The director chuckled. “Very inspiring indeed. You’ve been well-received over there. But now let’s move on to the free association.” He swiped through the tablet again, and Xiumin heard the sensors on the cap around his head whirring. “I’ll let the automated system take over from here. Goodbye, X-99. I look forward to seeing another perfect score.” The director stepped out of the room, and the lights dimmed.

Xiumin closed his eyes. 

_Mind. Time. Flight. Light._ Xiumin felt his scalp begin to tingle. He carefully willed the image out of his head, the image that always appeared during this part. An outstretched hand, a smiling face - Luhan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The XiuHan ship has sailed XD


	23. Faint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the medical ward, Sehun's memories are excavated.

You knew that Officer Young wasn’t going to return to Seorak until the afternoon, so the morning after that surreal nighttime jaunt by the waterfall, you went to the medical ward. You were exhausted and sleep-deprived, but everything you’d just learned about the X Project made you even more desperate to check on Sehun. 

He was still anesthetized, unmoved from when you’d last seen him, skin just as pale as before. You pulled up the lone chair in the room and sat down next to his bed, unsure what to do. Would he take any comfort if he could know that someone was there in the lonely room with him? But agents weren’t supposed to care about unproductive matters like loneliness. You didn’t know what you were waiting for or what you had to offer. So you just sat, feeling awkward. Somehow the alternative – working alone somewhere, when he was like this – seemed worse. 

At first you sat ramrod straight, thinking of Sehun’s always-perfect posture. But eventually, your eyes began to droop. You leaned forward and rested an arm on the soft edge of the hospital bed. That was more comfortable. Then you rested your head on your arm, which felt even better. 

You dreamed of the weeks after you and Sehun had been assigned agent Classes. The nervousness and pride mingling together as you and other C Class rookies were sent to a base on Jeju island that the New Goryeo military shared with SM. The roar of the wind off the Pacific ocean, the ever-present sound of crashing waves that reminded you of where you’d grown up on the other side of the sea. But this time, the ocean spelled a new beginning, not the end of a continent where an old nation had gone to die. 

“Agent!”

You awoke abruptly. A medical tech was shaking you by the shoulder. You raised your head, dazed, remembering where you were. You’d fallen asleep while resting your arm on Sehun’s bed. You hurriedly wiped a bit of drool from your mouth and stood up. 

“Yes, what is it?”

“I just… uh… what are you doing here? Do you have clearance?” The tech had tousled hair and wide, inquisitive eyes. He stared at you with curiosity and apprehension. 

Blearily, you looked over to see that Sehun was still asleep. Sighing, you pulled out your tablet and showed the tech your credentials. 

“I’m collecting data on this agent, officer’s orders.” You tried to sound authoritative. The tech looked young and a bit nervous, and he barely looked at your tablet before nodding. 

You noticed he had wheeled in an IV. “What are you doing with that?” He still looked anxious about you, so you added, “I’ll need to make a note of it in case I see a change in the data.” 

“Oh, it’s just a regular fluids transfusion. He lost a lot of blood, and we’re keeping him under so he can recover more quickly.”

“Tell me what exactly happened to him. Research purposes.” Again, you drew yourself up and tried to look like you were in charge. This might be your only chance to get a straight answer from anybody. 

“Knife wound to the brachial artery,” the tech said, glancing down at his clipboard. “Minor reconstructive surgery on arrival. He had a tourniquet on, but sustained almost 40% blood loss by the time he reached us.” You blanched. Just a few drops away from death. 

“How did it happen,” you asked through gritted teeth, looking away as the tech hooked Sehun up to the IV.

“I don’t know… that’s agent business. You could check his helmet cam though. We cleaned his gear – it’s in the closet.” 

Why hadn’t you thought of that earlier? You waited for the tech to finish, averted your eyes as he inserted the IV. Your eyes landed on an embroidered name on the breast of his white coat, the frayed thread indicating he had done it by hand. 

“Win… Win?” You couldn’t help saying the odd English words written there. 

The tech looked up and smiled as he swiped an alcohol pad over the equipment. “It’s my code name. I want to be an agent someday.” 

You frowned. “Even when you see us like this all the time?” You gestured to Sehun’s prone body. 

The tech’s youthful face clouded. “Well, dangerous jobs pay better. It would be a better position for me. For my career.” He had an accent, you noticed. A refugee from somewhere far away, like you. Someone who thought they had no better options. 

Before you could respond, he flitted out of the room, leaving a whiff of something like regret.

The soft, regular beeps of the monitor snapped you out of your momentary reverie. You strode over to the closet and dug out Sehun’s helmet. The matte black surface gleamed dully. You found the port for the cam data and quickly synced your tablet. You knew it had already been uploaded to SM servers, but you could still watch it on your tablet right there.

You scanned through the footage and rewound to the last 5 minutes before the helmet was taken off. 

It was Sehun’s viewpoint, of course. A slightly grainy view with various data points flashing in the corners, like a video game. It looked like he was laid out on the roof of a building, taking aim down the barrel of a K14 sniper rifle at a swarming group of men far below. The men were carrying large crates. The cam jerked as Sehun took a shot, then another, dropping several of the men in quick succession before they realized they were under attack. 

Some men scattered, but others kept carrying the crates. They were heading towards a heavily armed fighter jet. You recognized the blacker-than-black stealth panels on the wings and body. 

Guards with guns appeared and shot in Sehun’s general direction, but they hadn’t spotted him yet. The biometric display inside his helmet showed Sehun’s heartbeat increasing, and you could hear him panting as he struggled to reload the magazine. Another few shots, and several of the men broke off and ran towards the cluster of low buildings where Sehun was hiding. 

“They’ve assessed my general location,” you heard Sehun murmur into his helmet.

“ _Keep shooting_ ,” a voice responded. 

Sehun complied, but the men coming towards the buildings had clearly pinpointed his location, breaking into a run and disappearing from Sehun’s line of view. 

“I’ve been spotted.” Sehun’s voice was tense, but he didn’t move from the rifle, shooting whenever someone stood up from behind the cover of the crates below.

“ _You’ll have to fend them off. Two coming up your building. Not a single crate reaches that aircraft._ ”

A roaring sound erupted from the tablet, and you turned the volume down and raised it closer to your face. The engine for the jet had clearly just been turned on. Sehun’s cam showed him looking over his shoulder at the stairwell every few seconds while trying to keep raining down shots on the scene below. 

Someone shouted, and Sehun scrambled upright, cursing. You could see his pistol rise up in his cam view, and he shot at two men who burst out of the stairwell and ran towards him. The first man was hit in the chest, but the other kept coming, shielded by the first man. Sehun fired again, and you saw a spatter of blood burst out from the man’s arm. The man’s gun fell, but he was already upon Sehun. The cam was obscured for a moment, and you heard rustling, grunting, the discharge of Sehun’s gun again into the air. You saw a knife in the man’s hand arcing through the air, and Sehun twisted out of his grip. The view jolted, you heard a soft cry inside his helmet, then he got a clear shot at the man and fired. 

The man went down. Sehun was breathing hard inside the helmet. He dropped down heavily to his knees and crawled back into position at the rifle. 

“Hyung? Are you there? I got them. Can you see any more coming?” he panted.

“ _Negative._ ”

Sehun continued firing, but suddenly stopped. He lifted a hand in front of him. The black sleeve dripped with blood.

“Ah… I must’ve been wounded pretty bad. They knew… they knew where the armor is weak.” His voice shook.

The voice on the other end swore. “ _Hang in there. You’ve almost swept it._ ”

Sehun returned to the viewfinder of the rifle, kept up his bloody work. The biometrics in the helmet view started flashing red. Low blood pressure, low oxygen.

“Hyung…”

“I see it.” The voice cut him off. “We can’t come in until you’re done, otherwise the aircraft will leave.”

Sehun’s breath was ragged, shallow. The glove on the trigger was dripping now too. “I feel dizzy, hyung,” he whispered, his head nodding forward.

“ _Agent, Sehun, snap out of it! Complete the sweep._ ”

Sehun kept firing, and you felt tears running down your cheeks.

“I don’t want to die, hyung… not yet.” That was the last thing Sehun said before his helmet hit the ground. You kept watching, just flat concrete. About a minute later, you heard the distinctive whir of a SM helicopter, saw Sehun’s viewpoint swing around as his body was dragged upright, and then the view went black as his helmet was removed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NCT cameos! Short chapter... well, I said I would be updating more regularly, but I lied! Still haven't been feeling well. But, I do want to post more, so please stay tuned and I appreciate all my readers!


	24. (Interlude: Four Years Ago)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year after graduating from the SM academy, the rookies are sent to the rubble of bombed-out Seoul.

Jeju Island, one year after graduating from the SM academy. Rookie life was something like this: every morning you all ran along the beach for training exercises. In the afternoons, you contributed to various projects according to your ability. 

For you, this meant programming drones to dig through the rubble of old Seoul. Sehun helped run boot camp for the New Goryeo infantry recruits at the base. At night, there were classified briefings with SM officers, who would bring you the latest news on the war. You remembered huddling around the officer’s tablet, watching the day’s events unfold, feeling like you were finally a part of something important, something bigger. The officers also shared tidbits from their own assignments, and you reveled in their discretion – something only you were allowed to hear, the secrets of the best, the most elite, the ones who had made it this far. 

It was at one such briefing that you received your first field assignment. The officer that evening was holding court with a small group of rookies. The officer, Officer Choi, had streaks of silver in his hair, but his face was young. Still, he carried himself with an authority that made the rookies gravitate towards him, eager to please with their attentiveness. 

“As I’m sure you all know, SM has been contracted for recovery of important military equipment that was thought to be lost after the bombing of Seoul,” the officer told you all in hushed tones of confidence. “Radiation scans have indicated that pathways within the city are reaching acceptable levels of exposure, and we can now send in agents alongside our unmanned drones, which so far have lacked the fine skills needed to extract some of the delicate equipment.”

A breath of anticipation rippled across the rookies. You all knew what was coming. Who would get to go? Unconsciously, several rookies crowded closer towards Officer Choi.

“Now, the reason we’re sending our own, elite agents is because of recent reports of incursion by New Joseon looters.” He spat the last word, emphasizing his distaste. You saw Sehun frown slightly, sensed his anger at the thought of the enemy trampling through the graveyard of Seoul. “The government is sending a team of scientists and engineers who are trained in these kinds of delicate recoveries, but they will obviously need protection and the use of our unparalleled UAV equipment.” 

The officer must have noticed the alert anticipation in the room, because he broke into a smile. “I know you all have been preparing for this for a long time. We have the utmost faith in your ability to carry out this assignment, and all six of you will be going.” Several rookies whooped, and one of them slapped Sehun on the back, though his somber expression didn’t change. 

“You’ll be divided into small subunits to accompany the various recovery specialists. We don’t expect to encounter the enemy – you’re there as a precautionary measure. Further details and prep come tomorrow, and you’ll deploy the day after. Got it?”

“Yes sir!” you all cried out. Your heart raced with nervousness and anticipation. Part of you was reluctant to leave the safety of your office, but another part of you leapt at the opportunity. This was why they picked you for C Class, wasn’t it? If SM trusted in your abilities, then you should too. 

The rookies celebrated with an impromptu bonfire on the beach after dinner. You headed to the beach a little later, after thoroughly reviewing the specs on the different drones that were in use for the Seoul project. Just like how you used to compulsively review notes the night before an exam. 

At the beach, you saw Sehun sitting on a sandy spit of driftwood some distance from the bonfire circle. His back was to you. 

“Hey,” you said, over the roar of the sea and the crackling flames. You didn’t want to alarm him. He looked over his shoulder. “Can I join?” He nodded. 

You found the least sandy bit of wood and sat down next to him, grabbing his shoulder to steady yourself as the decrepit log wobbled back and forth. “Sorry,” you mumbled. The back of his uniform was warm from the fire behind him, but the front was cold and wet with ocean spray. 

He barely seemed to notice. “You OK?” you asked.

He replied after a moment. “I… thought I would be more excited about this. Our first field assignment.”

Sehun was a rarity - someone from Seoul who was still alive. Most citizens of Seoul had died the year the city was bombed. He had been visiting his grandparents in the countryside when it happened, and fled southwards with them as the deadly front of Chinese and North Korean soldiers pushed down the western edge of the country. The rest of his family wasn’t so lucky. He was one of a few thousand instant orphans who had miraculously been out of town the day the sky fell. 

“You’ll feel that excitement someday. Just maybe not for this assignment,” you tried to reassure him. 

“I mean, I want to go. I can’t believe they… New Joseon… would come back to loot the city.” His nose wrinkled in disgust. 

You saw Sehun’s hands clenching at his knees, compulsively tightening until his knuckles were white. The fabric of his uniform was tight against his knobbly knees, which you knew were extremely bony from getting kneed in the ribs by him one too many times during combat practice. “I’m kind of nervous about this,” you offered quietly.

He snorted. “You’re always nervous.” 

“I mean more than usual. I still never expected to be C Class. What if I… mess up and get us shot or something?”

“C’mon, this is what we’ve been preparing for. We’re ready. And I’ll watch your back.” His hands relaxed and slipped down from his knees, and he punched you lightly on the thigh. 

“You’re right, we’re ready.” You tried to muster the confidence to match your words. “And… I’ve got your back too.”

Someone by the bonfire yelled out at you. “C-C-81 stole some chocolate from the officers’ quarters! C’mon, we’re making SMORUS!”

“They’re called _S’MORES_ , Jungwoo!” you yelled back. 

“Su-mo-ru!!” he repeated loudly, waving a skewer with marshmallows at you. 

Sehun looked at you. “What’s a su-mo-ru?”

You smiled at the thought of the classic American treat. “Come and see!” You kicked your shoes off and pushed through the sand, walking back to the bonfire, Sehun shaking out the ocean spray from his hair as he followed.

**** 

As your unit picked carefully through the rubble of Seoul, you realized why the landscape was so unnerving. There was no sound. There were still bus stops, storefronts, defunct streetlights – other signs that made it a facsimile of an urban area, minus the noise of movement, of life.

So far, the assignment had been a success. You had reached the warehouse where the ancient equipment was still intact, waiting for the return of civilization. According to the intel your officers had given, there was computer hardware that might still contain useful information, as well as advanced detonation equipment the military was interested in recovering. You had managed the Geiger-counter drone that flew ahead of the unit to test for radiation hotspots, working with a government surveyor who had mapped out the route. 

Now, there was nothing to do but wait as the excavators did their work. Nobody had told you the hardest part of an assignment was waiting. Well, at least not until yesterday, just before you deployed, when it suddenly became the unsolicited advice of every officer and senior agent you encountered.

But now you understood what they meant. You were on edge. The oppressive silence meant that you reacted to every little noise. You desperately wanted to jam in your comforting earplugs, since you jumped up in alarm at every muffled detonation from the warehouse as the excavation unit tried to penetrate the rubble. But you were there to protect them, and you had to be alert. 

You heard the crunch of footsteps through shattered concrete. It was probably someone with the unit, but you knelt behind a rusted-out car and aimed your gun through the shattered window just in case.

A tall, black-clad figure similarly bristling with weaponry appeared from around a squat building. 

You stood, waving at him. “Clear?”

“Clear,” confirmed Sehun, lowering his weapon. “It’s a pretty big building. Maybe 300 meters per side. We’ll have to split up or patrol it regularly to keep an eye on everything.”

You and Sehun were the only two rookies in this unit. The other four rookies were accompanying a unit of researchers who were trying to collect additional data on the blast site in the far north of the city. It was a long-standing controversy as to exactly whose bomb had blown up the city – China’s or North Korea’s – and now that radiation levels were down, this assignment had taken on a serious political cast. According to the SM officers, it was also a convenient distraction for what your unit was doing, since no one wanted to alert New Joseon what you were up to, even if it was just petty looters in the city. Hence, the blast site unit had not only taken most of the rookies, but also several full-fledged agents plus Officer Choi. 

They had sent one senior agent with you, C-A-53, but he kept close to the government scientists at all time, and was inside the warehouse with them now. You felt painfully aware of your inexperience as you and Sehun went through the motions. C-A-53 had reassured you how unlikely it was you would encounter anybody at all, but as an anxiety-prone rookie, that wasn’t much help.

So you and Sehun sat and waited. The waiting was excruciating. You agreed to take turns sweeping the perimeter of the building every 30 minutes, passing the rest of the time in watchful silence. You lost count of how many sweeps you had done by the time the rest of the unit emerged from the partially buried warehouse. The evening sky was tinged with pink.

C-A-53 approached the two of you, and you stood at attention. He was covered in dust. “Turns out there’s a bit of tricky demolition work and a whole lot of manual labor.” He scowled and spat. “Most of these scientists aren’t suited for it. They want to rest for the night, then keep going in the morning.” 

You and Sehun nodded. It had not been totally unexpected that you all might need to camp out for a night or two, and you had basic provisions in your packs. The scientists had brought in cushier provisions on ambulatory drones, which often got stuck in the rubble. That was why you hadn’t even made it to the warehouse until after noon. 

C-A-53 continued. “I’ve been sitting in that stuffy warehouse all day, so I’ll take the first shift. You two have dinner, get some rest, and report back to me at 0300 hours.”

“Yes, sir.” 

As you wandered away from the entrance to the warehouse, Sehun spoke. “I saw a flat area that might be good for resting a bit. Not too exposed either.” 

You followed him around the perimeter of the warehouse, then out away from it for a bit. There was a pedestrian street with a few wide stone blocks arranged in various shapes, somewhere between a playground and a public seating area. You both sat down on a dolphin-shaped bench and pulled out your rations like it was a normal evening in the city. 

“So it would seem you didn’t just stick to the perimeter?” You hadn’t seen this park at all during your patrols.

Sehun looked a bit guilty. “I… thought I recognized the area. So I went out a bit. I’m pretty sure I used to play here when I was a kid.”

You looked around at the gray, dusty landscape. An overturned shopping cart was on your right. Tall grasses grew through the cracks in the sidewalk. But the stone shapes were distinctive enough you didn’t doubt his memory. 

“Jeez.”

“I think I even remember… where I used to live. Not far from here.”

His words lingered in the air. You could sense he was waiting for your reaction. 

“Is that something you want to see?” you asked cautiously. 

He looked down at his lap, considered his food for a moment. “I think so.”

You tried not to fidget nervously. “Sehun... I’m not sure it’s a good idea. What if something happens while we’re gone? Or something happens while we’re there?”

His jaw jutted out stubbornly. “It’s supposed to be our rest time. What do they care what we do?”

You decided to try another tactic. “I mean, aren’t you tired? It’s been a long day, and we do need the rest.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Well, I could stay here while you go explore.”

His face fell and he chewed on his lip. “I don’t want… I don’t think I could go alone.” His voice was almost a whisper as his eyes flickered sideways to you.

On the one hand, you were irritated with him for being a stubborn baby, as was his tendency. On the other hand, you understood. If you had a chance to see your home again… you felt a pang in your heart. No, you certainly wouldn’t be able to face it alone. Only with someone who could tether you to the present. Otherwise, you might get lost in the living memory. 

You huffed out a sigh. You stood up and hefted your pack onto your back. Like a stubborn baby, he usually got his way.

**** 

You followed him silently through the city. Before the assignment, you had imagined the city as a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic zone with unseen adversaries popping out at every corner, like a zombie video game. You were surprised to find that it was almost peaceful. The setting sun bathed the streets in a warm glow. Whatever horrors they had once seen were now subsumed by verdant plant life that had taken over every crack and crevice. Strange flowers bloomed, swaying gently in the wind. Like a walk in the park, other than the occasional bleached-white bones.

You waved the handheld Geiger counter in front of you, its hypnotic beeping sounding through your earpiece. Sehun loped ahead, pausing every once in a while to orient himself by staring up at the clusters of buildings.

“How do you know where it is?” you asked quietly.

“I was six when I was last here. Old enough to remember,” he replied. “I think this is the building.”

It was a typical, low-slung apartment building, about six stories high. It had probably been gleaming white back in the day, now a dull gray. The design was slightly modernistic, and it had a parking garage on the first floor, so you guessed Sehun’s family was comfortably middle class, maybe upper middle class. He was an only child, like you. His father must have been tall, his mother elegant, and you imagined them striding happily with toddler Sehun out of the building, swinging him between their arms.

Maybe he was picturing a similar image, because he stopped in front of the building and stared for a while. But his words broke you out of any pleasant reverie.

“I still don’t know how they died.” 

All of the options were ugly. This far away from the blast site, it might not have been immediate carbonization. Blunt impact from the chaos of the shockwave was the best-case scenario, a slow death from burns and radiation poisoning somewhere towards the worse end. 

You shuddered, but forced yourself to walk forward and stand next to him. He tilted his head back, the fading sunlight revealing the planes of his face etched with grief. 

“You don’t have to go in, Sehun.”

“Will you come with me? Just a little further?”

You thought you would go anywhere he asked. 

The first floor was a hollowed-out area beneath the building, half of it for parking and the rest of it open. Stark white columns marked the space. Ahead, you could see a wide, outdoor stairwell, which Sehun was heading for. “Where…?”

“We were on the fourth floor, I remember,” he explained.

As you passed by a column, you heard a noise from the other side. You and Sehun darted behind the narrow column, pressing together for cover. You reached down to pull out your pistol, and he did the same. He stuck out his gloved hand, and you saw the countdown. One, two, three…

You leapt out into a crouch, gun leveled at where the noise had come from. 

It was a deer. You held a hand up to warn Sehun, who was standing behind you, but when you looked back at him you saw he had already holstered his gun. You stood up slowly. 

The deer had a beautiful reddish-brown coat and long, branching antlers. It looked up at you, unconcerned, and then went back to foraging the long grasses that were encroaching into the parking lot. 

“It’s not scared,” Sehun murmured.

“It’s probably never seen people before,” you said with wonder. 

Sehun hummed in assent, as if he understood the undertone of envy in your voice. He continued towards the stairwell, and the deer grazed contentedly, flashing its white rump at you as it turned. Its nonchalance made you feel slightly less freaked out about climbing up into the dark, dead building.

But only slightly. Sehun paused after the first step. Your heart pounded in your ears, but you forced yourself to step up next to him.

You found yourself reaching for his hand, feeling foolish, but when your fingertips tentatively brushed his, he pulled your hand into a strong grip. You continued climbing together. 

The hallway on the fourth floor had an open-air balcony that looked out onto the city. You could see the vivid colors of the sunset in the distance, and down below, several more deer grazing. Sehun’s eyes were fixed on the door at the end of the hallway, which was half open. As if in a trance, he walked towards it. 

Inside, the objects were worn with time but still so ordinary as to be surreal. A keyboard, a bookshelf still stocked with books, a sofa with upholstery and blankets to protect the surface. The windows were shattered, and some things had toppled here and there, but otherwise it looked like a plain apartment with a nice view. 

“Why don’t I… check first?” you offered. He nodded miserably, knowing what you meant. You quickly swept the apartment, then returned to the living room, where he was staring at a framed picture that had fallen to the floor. “Clear,” you whispered. No bodies lying around. 

You stood by the door awkwardly as he walked through the apartment. It didn’t take long. He touched the doorframes, picked up a stuffed toy on the ground, disappeared into the bedroom with it. When he returned, he simply said, “I’m ready.”

“Do you want to take anything?” you asked.

He shook his head. “Let it rest.”


	25. Scour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xiumin likes to keep his armor clean.

Xiumin slowly polished his helmet with a soft rag until the matte black surface gleamed. He held it back and inspected it. 

A few specks of dust. 

He kept polishing. 

Although the surface of the helmet bore several dents and fractures from bullets, its impenetrable surface was otherwise immaculately clean. Ever since he had been issued the armor upon promotion to full agent status, Xiumin had taken extremely good care of it. He knew that without it, he would have been long dead. The infantry soldiers he trained didn’t have such armor, only bulletproof vests. But there was so much vulnerable flesh hanging out of those vests, flesh the military couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pay to cover. 

SM armor was expensive, but it wasn’t perfect. Improvised explosive devices, a freak bullet trajectory that found the seams in the joints. In Sehun’s case, a well-placed knife. Xiumin had visited Sehun in the medical ward that morning. The young agent was finally conscious again, but groggy. Xiumin pieced together that someone on the other side - the enemy - had acquired the proprietary SM armor technology, had found its weak points, and that was how Sehun had gotten so fucked up. 

Xiumin set the helmet down and picked up his shoulder pads. These, too, were scratched and lined, but structurally sound. He polished them as well, even though they needed no further cleaning. 

Since he had passed his loyalty test with flying colors, SM hadn’t given him much to do. The occasional test or training exercise for their little lab rat. But mostly he was free to roam the base, though he quickly created his own structures for stability and normalcy, like a good lab rat should. Exercise. Cleaning his barracks. Cleaning his office. Cleaning his armor. 

He put his feet up on the desk in his office. It was in the remote bunker where the X Project was undergoing its second phase. With the door open, his office was flooded with artificial sunlight from the hallway - almost as good as the real thing. Xiumin was about to start polishing the long panels of armor that fit over his forearms and shins when he heard a familiar voice coming from further down the hallway. Quiet, precise, controlled. Director Lee. 

“Since X-94 is still recovering, that’s one less agent that we can have right now. Therefore, we’ll need to do rather… rigorous testing on you. I’m sure you understand, yes?” 

“Yes, sir,” came a low murmur in response. 

Xiumin knew that voice too.

Three people stepped into the doorway of his office. The director looked down at Xiumin. Officer Young’s eyes darted around his immaculate office, and the third person, a tall, handsome agent with tawny skin, stopped in abrupt surprise upon seeing Xiumin. 

Xiumin stood and bowed. “Director. Officer. Kai.”

Upon hearing his name, Kai strode forward and embraced Xiumin. “Hyung. It’s been a while.”

Xiumin patted Kai on the back, then pulled away. “Where have you been?”

He felt more than saw Kai flush. A rush of shame, fear, anger, and… pleasure? Xiumin knew only he could sense these emotions in Kai, whose outward appearance was unchanged.

“You know that’s classified, hyung,” Kai replied carefully. 

Xiumin turned to the others. “Director, may I help you?”

Officer Young cut in. “We’re assigning X-88 to this office for now. We need him close by for intensive testing. Starting now.”

“We can share it,” offered Kai uncomfortably. 

“No problem,” said Xiumin. “I was just on my way out for some exercise.” He carefully stashed his armor with the rest of the equipment, and walked out of the room.

****

The sun was just starting to dip in the sky when D-C-4 finally peeled off her boxing gloves and threw them into the dirt in frustration.

Xiumin didn’t blame her. He’d been pushing her hard this afternoon. She’d shown up at the training area not long after him. He’d recognized a similar discontent, some barely concealed anxiety that could only be released by beating the shit out of someone. He understood. He didn’t ask. But he wasn’t going to be anybody's punching bag, so he just sparred with her as usual until it seemed her nervous energy was spent. 

But Xiumin still wanted to fight. He didn’t want to think about all the questions Kai’s return had raised. He thought of finding Chen and going to the gym, but at that moment the solution strolled right up to him.

Suho and Irene, arm in arm, arrived at the edge of the training pit. SM’s shining couple. Suho was slightly younger than Xiumin, but already an officer. Irene, meanwhile, was a known favorite of several directors due to her knack for crypto-forgery, and had higher security clearances than most officers even. 

But as stiff and serious as Suho looked, Xiumin knew he was a good boxing partner. “You’re just in time,” Xiumin called out to them. 

D-C-4, slumped on the ground and panting, eyed the couple warily. 

Xiumin beckoned them over. “Suho. It’s been a while. Back in the day, you even beat me a few times.” He started strapping his gloves back on. 

“Hyung, I’m not sure now is a good time,” Suho laughed nervously. 

Xiumin stared at him. “Why not?”

“We were just… just… walking back to our quarters.” He wilted under Xiumin’s intent gaze.

“Yeah, honey, why not?” cut in Irene. 

“Just one round,” said Xiumin, not meaning it. 

He turned to D-C-4 and held out a hand. She took it, and Xiumin pulled her up. “I meant the gloves,” Xiumin explained. She glared at him, but picked up the gloves and handed them over. Moving to the side of the arena, she crossed her arms to stretch while Xiumin and Suho squared off.

****

Several rounds later - Xiumin didn’t bother to count - Suho also tapped out, exhausted.

“You haven’t been practicing,” Xiumin observed. Suho glared at him, his usually neat hair now plastered to his forehead with seat. 

“I have,” cut in Irene. She moved towards Xiumin and the center of the ring.

Xiumin raised his eyebrows. He remembered that Irene was a taekwondo master, and his mind wandered to tactics for dealing with those lightning-fast kicks. Unconsciously, he flexed his arms and shadowboxed the air. 

Suho eyed Xiumin nervously. “Come on, honey, we should get going… or, why don’t you spar with her?” He gestured towards D-C-4, who was still stretching on the other side of the training area. 

“What, because we’re both _girls_?” Irene looked cross. D-C-4 walked over, also looking skeptical at Suho’s suggestion.

“No, just… well, you haven’t met each other yet, have you?” Suho offered awkwardly. He stood up straight and adopted a business-like tone. “A formal introduction is in order before sparring, isn’t it?” He nodded towards Irene. “This is Agent B-C-26, my teammate and partner. And this is, uh…”

“D-C-4,” Xiumin offered, when it was clear that Suho had forgotten her name.

“Yes, D-C-4. From, uh…?”

Suddenly, D-C-4 made a strange twitching motion. “It was you!” Her eyes widened. “You… your voice… you were handling Sehun on his last assignment! You almost let him die!” 

Xiumin saw Suho’s face harden. “I did not.”

“I saw the cam footage. I heard you. You endangered his life despite having other personnel nearby! That is NOT assignment protocol!”

“Hang on, what…?” Xiumin started to ask, but Suho cut him off. 

“Agent, if you’re questioning my management ability, you can take the complaint to HR. I made a calculated decision based on the information I had, and the rate of blood loss…”

Xiumin saw all tiredness drain from the agents he had just fought. They looked ready to charge at each other, and Xiumin took a step forward so that he was in between them. 

“He’s not a… a sink you can just fucking drain!” D-C-4 pointed at Suho accusingly. “A minute longer, and he would have been dead!”

Suho's face reddened further. “But he’s not dead, is he? I knew what I was doing. You weren’t there. How dare you think you knew what’s best for our assignment?”

Xiumin put a hand on D-C-4’s shoulder because she’d started forward, a disconcerting fury written across her face. 

But Irene stepped protectively in front of Suho. “Please,” she whispered. “He feels bad enough already.” She looked down, and her voice was barely audible. “It was devastating, actually. We… we _love_ Sehun.” 

Xiumin could feel D-C-4 falter. He had no idea what was going on, but he could tell Irene’s words had somehow diffused further conflict. D-C-4 looked stricken. 

Suho abruptly spun on his heels, pulling Irene by the hand. She cast an apologetic look over her shoulder at Xiumin before allowing herself to be led away. 

He turned to D-C-4. “What the hell was that about?”

“It’s true,” she said stubbornly. “Suho was the unit leader when Sehun was almost killed. I heard him. In the cam footage.”

“Their assignment is none of your business, agent. And cam footage is classified.”

She crossed her arms and stared into the distance. 

Xiumin recognized a wall when he saw one. He sighed. “Well, neither of us were there. I’m sure Suho used his best judgment.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “Maybe we need to report this. Suho’s negligence almost KILLED an agent. Sehun was… he didn’t want to die like that.” Xiumin noticed that her eyes looked glassy. 

“Look, agent. That’s part of the job. Officers, unit leaders - they call the shots, and we deal with the consequences.” At this, she eyed him balefully. “Trust me,” Xiumin continued. “I’ve spent a lot more time in the field than you have. There are always hard choices.” 

“If he really _loved_ Sehun, he wouldn’t have gambled on his life.” 

Xiumin was silent for a moment. “I’d say that must have made it even harder for Suho,” he said quietly. 

“What would you know about it?” she spat. “Everything’s so easy for you. Following orders, fighting… killing too, probably. You, Suho, all the New Goryeo princelings… your country always comes before your comrades.” 

Xiumin knew her outburst could be considered sedition, that he could easily report her and land her on probation for a few months. That would cool her temper. This kind of volatility was detrimental to an agent’s work.

But he remembered Sehun in the medical ward this morning, struggling to sit upright. He remembered Luhan’s face, set with determination and illuminated by firelight the night he left their barracks for the last time. He remembered the real New Goryeo princelings, spitting on a ragged refugee child who couldn’t afford lunch in their charitable schools. 

“I’m not… like that,” he said. 

His sudden tentativeness seemed to startle her. She looked at him with growing dismay. “Shit. Forget what I said. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…” She abruptly turned and bolted off, leaving Xiumin standing there in the dust and fading sun.

He looked down. He was still holding his sparring gloves. The hours of intense fighting had ground dirt deep into the leather, and he knew no amount of scouring could get it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh it took me a while to write this chapter the way I wanted it. I wasn't originally going to introduce Xiumin's perspective until the next part, but he's just such an intriguing character!


	26. Confirmation Bias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double chapter update!

Every night was the same. You came back to your barracks, ate whatever boxed meal you had grabbed from the mess hall, and watched the SM news broadcast, alone. 

Tonight, in her immaculate suit, Taeyeon was calmly recounting how recent guerilla tactics by New Goryeo allies in the South China Sea had successfully led to a withdrawal of Chinese forces from some of the islands. In her soothing voice, bloody incidents became just a litany of numbers. She urged agents to sign up for more field assignments, then turned to a new topic. 

_“New Joseon appears to have deployed a mysterious new technology on the warfront in the Philippines. Dubbed “black steel”, this mysterious new material has been spotted on New Joseon military equipment.”_ Grainy footage showed a black plane moving across the sky, looking like a tear in a photograph revealing the darkness behind. _“This material appears to be able to avoid detection of most standard military scanning equipment. The United Nations is discussing a possible ban as New Joseon maintains a stubborn silence.”_

You turned the broadcast off, feeling sick to your stomach. The last thing you wanted to think about was your past assignment, but the alternative was thinking about your current one - the X Project. You had lost your temper completely, shouting at Suho AND Xiumin at the training area - agents ranked much higher than you. It was the first time you could remember raising your voice in a long time. 

You massaged your temples, remembering what a difficult kid you’d been in contrast to the careful reserve you’d developed at SM. As a kid, you were always fighting back, lashing out at your parents, rebelling in the small, petulant ways only a young child could. That had all stopped during the war years. It was funny how the pall of war made everyone reserved and responsible. Waiting for rations in orderly lines, obeying curfew. And the weight of responsibility had fallen heaviest on your shoulders. Deep down, you had known what your parents were doing on all those late nights, those secret meetings, with those contraband goods. Treason. Resistance. And their transgressions made it even more important for you to seem like an outwardly upstanding colony kid. There was suddenly no more energy for petty fights. 

And that tiredness had continued all through your years at SM. Why bother with draining emotions like anger, regret, hatred, hope? There was only room for carefully managed fear, which was a useful emotion, like a fuel that could feed an engine indefinitely in small doses. 

Until you’d seen Sehun again. In just the past few weeks, you’d gotten angry _at_ him, you’d gotten angry _for_ him, and you couldn’t even articulate why. 

You cast about for a distraction. Idly, you opened your tablet and resumed your Sushi Smash game. After several rounds, the leaderboards showed up. You sat up in your bed, momentarily irritated. Some user named BunPrince had appeared and stolen away your number one spot. You whiled away several hours matching pixels of raw fish and optimizing imaginary feasts, until finally falling into an uneasy sleep.

****

If dinners were lonely, lunches were hardly any better. This week, to avoid the sterile hallways of the X Project bunker and the steely glares of Officer Young, you’d taken to eating outside, before the weather got really cold.

But today, when you reached the rock where you usually sat for your pathetic picnics, you saw someone else was already there - a hunched figure. 

At your approach, they looked up, and you recognized the pale, strained face. It was Chen, clutching at his abdomen. 

You gasped. “Chen, you’re hurt!”

He clasped at his undershirt, looked at the hand that came away wet at the fingertips. “Oh, it’s nothing, it’s fine.” He straightened up, hurriedly pulling his uniform jacket tight around him. 

You continued towards him, trying to get a glimpse at the wound. “Chen, it doesn’t look fine, do you need…”

“It’s fine,” the usually gentle agent snapped. “And if you really want to know, it’s from the biopsies you all have been taking.” 

That shut you up. _You all._ “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…”

“Yeah, well, now you do. Tissue biopsies hurt, OK?” 

You swallowed. “Maybe I can… ask them to stop? I’ve already finished the analysis of, uh, the tissue, I don’t see why they would need to do it multiple times.”

“You really think you have a say in all this?” His voice had taken on a dark tone that you’d never heard before from the cheerful agent. 

Again, you fumbled with your words. “I… maybe…” You weren’t sure if his question was throwing you off, or his unusual temper. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to do my job.”

“Just doing your job, huh? That’s what the New Joseon war criminals said.” 

His words crackled in the air. You stared at him in shock. 

He hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

But now you felt a flicker of anger inside you. Maybe it had been simmering in there for a while now, your fuse now permanently shortened after losing your temper at Suho. “Really, Chen? And your work is completely pure and noble? Manufacturing New Joseon stealth tech?” You surprised yourself with the forcefulness of your words.

He looked aghast. “How did you know about that?”

You rolled your eyes. “Even the most secure computer systems can’t block office chatter.” It all seemed obvious in retrospect. “I was on the assignment to capture the tech intact in the first place. Then when I saw what we were doing with it at Seorak, all the agents, the trafficking of parts on and off base. I knew it was more than just analysis.”

He sighed. “I guess it is the obvious thing to do. When someone uses new tech to change the rules of the game…”

“But should we really be making more of that stuff?” Now that you’d gotten started, it was hard to stop. “You know, it makes drones almost useless. I saw firsthand how much manpower is needed to take down a stealth craft. Things could get even more bloody…”

“You think I don’t know that? But we can’t fall behind New Joseon. This is a huge acquisition for SM. Technologically and financially.” He paced back and forth in agitation.

“And you’re really able to reverse engineer it from the boat we captured?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Reverse engineering is not the same as understanding the fundamentals of an innovation. You know that. We’ll never get far that way. SM has been slowly taking over the supply chain for the stealth tech. We need the physical materials, but we also need the talent. You know. The scientists and engineers.”

You realized your hands were shaking. “So you’ve been stealing… and kidnapping?” 

His eyes flashed at you. “It’s easy for you to judge. You’d agree with me if you were in my position. It’s what needs to be done if we want to make the technology as good as theirs.” His face was drawn and ashen. 

You decided there was no point in arguing with him. You were both just doing your jobs, after all. “Sure, I get it. Look, I’m going to head back. I’m sorry I bothered you. Just… just let me know if there’s ever anything I can do.” 

He didn’t respond, just looked down at his hands, which were dotted with blood. As you turned, you thought you saw a spark of electricity dance across his palm.

****

Back in your office, work felt excruciating. The director had arrived this week, and the pressure of his presence permeated the entire bunker.

Before, your tasks were pleasantly numbing. Now, you felt as if you were picking at an impossible knot as you passed the hours in your windowless office at work, trying to understand how the X agents’ abilities had been induced, but more often wondering what was going on inside their heads. There was a current of watchfulness between you all, some slight change in how they regarded you, ever since the meeting at the waterfall.

However, the agents were elusive. You rarely saw Baekhyun. He still technically lived in the room next to yours at the out-of-the-way barracks, and you saw him come in at night and leave in the morning. But you also happened to know he snuck out most nights, probably to Chanyeol’s, leaving his tablet and all his things in his room to avoid detection. Fine, that was his business. You hadn’t seen Chanyeol either – the hot-tempered man had a nocturnal schedule, it seemed.

One day, you went to the training pit, hoping to find Xiumin. You wanted to apologize, and get back to your regular sparring sessions. He didn’t seem the type to let harsh words get in the way of a workout. 

But when you arrived, you found Suho and his partner Irene already there. They were stretching, sitting close together, deep in conversation. Irene spotted you and tentatively raised a hand in greeting. Suho avoided looking at you. 

You stopped in your tracks. “Where’s X-99?” you asked stiffly.

They exchanged a look. “He just flew out on a new assignment,” said Irene. 

“Confidential duration and location?” You didn’t expect them to know, and if they did, they probably couldn’t share. 

“Indeed,” she said. Scarcely hiding your disappointment, you turned to leave.

Suho spoke suddenly. “He made me promise to invite you to train with us.” His expression was haughty, stubborn. “So. Would you like to train with us.” He sounded begrudging, but you appreciated Xiumin’s thoughtfulness in that moment. Suho seemed like the type who would keep a promise to a friend, no matter how odious.

Irene was more accommodating. “I could teach you some taekwondo. In exchange for boxing tips.” She arched an eyebrow at you, and you decided she wasn’t so bad. 

“Oh, um, sure. That sounds good, actually.” The truth was that you had nothing better to do, and admittedly you had mostly come here in the hopes of finding company.

They thoroughly kicked your ass. But that night, you slept more soundly than you had in a while, not even hearing Baekhyun as he crept quietly out for his nighttime trysts.

****

The next day, an urgent message popped up on your screen at work. It was from Officer Young.

_Sending you a new data stream on the most recent agent who arrived on base. Usual research protocol. Muscle biopsy in a few days. Read this._

She had attached a dense scientific article about muscle tissue and sarcomeres. You shuddered and felt a twinge of guilt when you thought of Chen’s biopsies. 

You pulled up the data feed from the newest agent. You started doing the usual scans for deviations from the controls when a second message popped on your screen.

_Meeting in my office now. Director Lee wants to see you._

****

You stood next to the director and fidgeted as he swiped through your latest report. You had tried to put in a lot of visualizations and diagrams explaining your hypotheses about the procedures used to induce the X agents’ abilities, and sometimes he zoomed in on a morsel that caught his interest. Officer Young sat at her desk, looking bored.

The director set down the tablet. “Officer Young. You said this agent has proved to be a valuable asset to your team. Are you willing to continue working with her?”

“Oh, yes.” She smiled at you coldly. “She does what I tell her to. Good little agent.” You tried to avoid her eyes. 

“I’m glad this agent has been useful to you.” He didn’t even look at you when he spoke. “Officer Kwon put in a request to be her handler again, but I think I will leave her with you for longer. I have big plans for the X agents in the next few weeks.” 

You swallowed. A few weeks ago, you would have been proud to know officers were fighting over your time. Now, you felt in over your head on this project.

“Agent D-C-4,” he said, finally turning to you. “Shadow me for the rest of the day.” Officer Young narrowed her eyes, but didn’t object. 

“Yes, sir.” You knew you should be glad for the opportunity to spend time with a director, but you had also wanted to visit the medical ward and see if Sehun was awake. But the director was motioning for you to follow him out of the room, and you didn’t have time to think about Sehun anymore.

****

The director first went to inspect the hangar at the base. He walked slowly, and you tried to match his pace. Neither of you spoke.

The hangar was a fair distance from the remote bunker you worked in. Once you arrived, with excruciating thoroughness, he interrogated the techs and agents in the hangar about the performance of the helicopters and planes on base. He clasped his hands behind his back, looking out of place in his pinstripe suit as he peppered an unlucky agent with questions about the maintenance of the machines.

On the way back, you both walked in silence. When you passed other people in the hallway, they nodded deferentially and scurried out of the way. 

Finally, the director spoke. “And what do you think of Officer Young’s management of this project?”

“Sir, I… I’m not qualified to comment on that.”

“Well, I asked you. So you must.” 

You turned red. You were scared of the icy officer, but you feared the taciturn director even more. “Well, uh, I appreciate her… commitment to the project. She puts in long hours. She provides me with the resources I need. She’s very involved in all the details.” You had to admit, she was a good manager, despite her threatening demeanor. 

“And has she told you about the earlier phase of the project?”

You needed to tread carefully here. “No, I think she decided that, uh, for the sake of scientific accuracy, I should try to come to my own conclusions about the nature of the X agents.” You swallowed. “I mean, I agree with her, sir. In the absence of a fully double blind protocol, I believe this is the optimal way to reduce confirmation bias.” God, why couldn’t you just speak like a normal person?

But he just nodded, ignoring your clipped, formal speech. “Yes, that was a wise decision. Suffice it to say that in the earlier phase, we had some issues confirming the treatment effects of the experiments. As you may have noticed, some agents express their abilities more strongly. Is this due to some sort of dosage effect from the treatments, or is it confounded by underlying factors in the individual agents?”

You stared at him. Finally, someone who understood your language. You’d been wondering the same thing yourself. 

“Well, sir, if you could give me access to pre-treatment data, that would give me a clearer sense of the effects of the treatment and greatly help in identifying…”

He waved his hand. “Classified. In any case, we don’t need that much precision. I have plenty to go off of from what you’ve already done.” He rubbed his hands together with relish. “Agent, I was planning to go to sit in on some of the testing now. I know it can be challenging for you given the usual protocols about maintaining distance from subjects during the tests. But, you’ve confirmed enough of the cases, and I think you’d be quite interested to see.”

“Oh, yes, that would actually be very helpful for my research.” You felt emboldened by his succor. “Is it the new agent? Officer Young sent me their data this morning.”

“Yes, indeed. One of our most valuable combat agents.” He seemed pleased by your enthusiasm. But instead of turning back to the testing facilities, he headed away from the bunker, towards the forest. 

“Sir? Are we… going to the testing facilities?” 

He looked smug. “The shooting range, actually. That’s where we’re doing tests today.”


	27. Stuck and Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai and Sehun face off on the shooting range.

A large area around the shooting range had been cordoned off, and several armed guards were posted. Given their olive uniforms, they were probably on loan from the New Goryeo military. They moved out of the way to let you and the director through.

The new agent was a tall, tawny-skinned man. You tensed up when you saw that he was standing in the target area of the shooting range. He was adjusting a thick, black visor that covered his eyes and wrapped around his head. He wasn’t wearing any body armor, just the simple black agents’ uniform. His stance was relaxed, and he seemed profoundly unconcerned about breaking the most fundamental safety rule for a shooting range. 

Officer Young and several techs stood nearby. The slim officer was also wearing a black uniform now, along with tactical gloves, safety glasses, and earmuffs. You tried to get used to the sight of her without a neatly pressed white lab coat. She glared at you questioningly, but the director nodded at her, and she shrugged.

“We were just about to get started,” she called out. 

“Go ahead then, Officer,” he responded.

“200 meter test. Cam ready?” One of the techs nodded. “Ready, X-88?” she yelled across the shooting range. The black-clad agent gave a thumbs up. Could he even see through that strange visor? 

She pulled out a 9mm handgun, shifted into a comfortable stance, and took aim at him. 

“What…” you gasped. Instinctively, you reached out towards her, but she had already fired. The agent twitched. And that was all. For a moment, no one moved. 

Officer Young looked over her shoulder at your outstretched hand and made a disdainful face. “Did you not tell her they’re rubber bullets?” she asked the director. 

You quickly retracted your hand and shut your gaping mouth. The agent at the end of the shooting range stood in the same relaxed stance as before, apparently untouched. 

“Continue,” said the director.

You watched in disbelief as Officer Young continued to fire at him. Like before, the agent twitched, though as you tried to watch more closely, you realized it was more like a… flicker. He moved so quickly it was barely perceptible. Sometimes, he didn’t move at all, and you figured those shots were far off. He looked almost jaunty, even daring to hook a thumb into his pocket and jut his hip out. 

“150 meter test, commence.” She and the techs walked forward to a line demarcated in the dirt. She continued firing, with the same effect. If you weren’t seeing it with your own eyes, you wouldn’t believe it.

She paused to reload, fumbling with the magazine. “Dammit. When’s that agent going to get here?” 

“Any minute now, sir,” responded one of the techs, who was looking at a tablet.

As she prepared to fire again, you leaned towards the tech. “What kind of data are you collecting?” 

Officer Young fired. The agent didn’t move, and she cursed.

“Hmm, for this, we’re just using super high frame rate cameras,” replied the tech. “There are some movement sensors on him too, and basic biometrics readings from the uniform.” You looked around and spotted the cameras towards the end of the shooting range. 

“Are you looking at the footage now?” you asked. The tech nodded, and inclined the tablet to you so you could see as well. He scrolled through the video that had just been taken, forward and back, the black-clad figure of the agent seeming to dance jerkily with the scroll, then opened a window with the live footage of the agent. The camera showed his face clearly. Though the visor obscured his eyes, his full lips were curved into a smug smile. Officer Young fired a few more rounds, which he barely had to move for. 

You heard someone approaching. “Finally,” Officer Young huffed. “This will be more interesting.” 

“Indeed,” murmured the director. Your head snapped up from the perplexing tablet footage. Officer Young was handing her pistol to none other than Sehun. 

You stared at him in shock. He still looked pale, and you could see white bandages beneath the collar of his uniform. He held his injured arm stiffly, close to his body. 

“You can still shoot, right?” she asked testily. “And we went over the other relevant details this morning.”

He nodded, looking intently at the agent at the end of the shooting range. Without glancing down, he loaded a new cartridge and gently hefted the gun up and down, feeling its weight. 

“Give him some space,” hissed Officer Young, and the group of techs backed off. Director Lee moved some distance to the side, and you followed him. You didn’t like the hungry look on Officer Young’s face. 

Without warning, Sehun fired off a shot. The agent didn’t move. Sehun frowned. “These bullets are off.” 

The director cut in. “We had them specially designed for this test. They perform at a longer range than regular rubber bullets, but of course you’ll notice some difference from regular ammunition. Try to calibrate.” 

Officer Young hadn’t taken her eyes off Sehun. He pulled one of the bullets out of a spare cartridge and examined it, again hefting it up and down. “Let me try again,” he said. His voice seemed hoarse, weak. 

He fired off three more shots in quick succession. You saw the agent’s face on the video feed – he had cocked an eyebrow. _Are you even trying?_ his expression seemed to ask. 

“Now I’ve got it,” said Sehun. He moved himself into a more stable stance, legs slightly wider. He winced as he used his injured arm to brace the extended one aiming the gun. The other agent crouched slightly, coiled like a spring. Sehun fired. The agent doubled over. 

Nobody moved as the agent slowly straightened up, massaging the left side of his chest. “Continue,” ordered the director. 

Sehun fired again, and this time the agent flickered to the right. 

“Don’t stop until I tell you to,” said the director coolly. Sehun’s face remained stony as he fired off several more shots, hitting the agent only once, apparently in the leg. 

“100 meter test,” said the director. You stared at him incredulously. Even ordinary rubber bullets could be dangerous in that range. But the techs were already dragging their equipment forward. 

Once Sehun had set himself up again, the brutal test continued. The other agent’s movements became larger, from flickers to twists and turns. Sehun hit him again, in the abdomen, and you heard a muffled cry of pain. “Why don’t you use paintball capsules or… something?” you whispered to the director. 

Officer Young heard you. “This isn’t playtime, agent. We’re trying to mimic field conditions as closely as possible. It took a lot of time and money to get these rubber bullets working like real ones.” Her face had a sour look that made you think she would have rather just shot real bullets at the unfortunate agent. 

“Yes, actually I personally designed this test and its equipment,” said the director, and you reddened. “The visor helps him magnify the opponent and better trace the trajectory of the bullet. And it protects his eyes, I suppose. We tried airsoft pellets, but as they’re relatively painless, we couldn’t quite… induce the same reaction in our agent here.”

If Sehun heard, he didn’t react. He continued firing, pausing only to let the agent recover when he was hit. 

You remembered the time you were hit by a rubber bullet at a riot when you were in high school. You hadn’t even been protesting – you’d just wanted to take a shortcut home and thought you could push your way through the throng of angry people. But things had escalated quickly. Too quickly. The military police started firing into the crowd, which immediately scattered and thinned. For a moment, you’d seen your father in the crowd. You shouted for him and raised your hand, and that’s when it hit. Your right ring finger was immediately dislocated. You’d stared down in shock at the strange angle, rooted to the ground, when the roaring noise of a water cannon jolted you back to reality. You scrambled behind a building, squeezed your eyes shut, and re-set the finger. The pain was blinding, but you knew it would be harder once the inflammation set in. Your dad had told you that once. You crouched in your hiding place and watched the fleeing crowd run by, but you didn’t seem him pass. That was the last time you ever saw him. And the same day you’d applied to SM.

“Contact rate of 18% for this round, sir,” announced one of the techs. You looked down the shooting range at the agent, who was still massaging his leg. 

“Again,” said the director. Sehun’s jaw was set as he raised the gun once more and aimed at the agent. At this close range, each could see the other’s face clearly. The other agent again crouched lightly, sleeves rolled up, mouth twisted in anger. You wondered about their history, how long they had known each other, if they’d hung out at the academy. What they had gone through together for the X Project.

Sehun fired, and the agent twisted his head so fast you thought he’d snapped his neck. Had he been hit? It appeared not, but it must have been close. The agent bared his teeth at Sehun, and Sehun lowered the gun slightly.

The director cleared his throat, and Sehun brought the gun back up again. The savage dance continued. The other agent was perhaps getting better at evasion, but Sehun was also getting a better handle on the gun. X-88 was hit again, and the next time, he dropped down to one knee and didn’t get back up. You thought you saw a glint of satisfaction in Sehun’s eyes, but your stomach churned with nausea when you looked over to the crumpled agent. Unconsciously, you rubbed at your right ring finger.

“That’s enough for today.” The director waved Sehun away. “Return to the medical ward. Oh, and take him with you,” he added as an afterthought. Sehun started walking towards the keeled-over agent. Sehun seemed stable, if a little stiff, and you hoped X-88 had nothing more than a few light bruises. But you weren’t so sure. 

The director was already debriefing with Officer Young. “We’ll need to train him more on evasion, now that we’ve been able to test this. That was a relatively poor performance,” he was saying. “Wouldn’t be much use in the field. See if he can evade hits or at least take them to non-lethal areas.” 

Officer Young nodded. “Yes, I wonder if we can train him to identify those.” You shuddered, imagining having to choose which tender spot of non-essential flesh could take the bullet. X-88’s abilities were beyond your understanding, but his choices were the same. You were disgusted with yourself for getting so fascinated by the test. _They tested their weapons on innocent people_ , your father had explained to you not long before he disappeared. _And that is the measure of evil_. But what if the weapons _were_ people? 

With a satisfied expression, the director watched as Sehun helped the other agent up. The agent leaned on him for a moment, then limped away on his own, Sehun following closely behind. 

“Why… why did you have Sehun do the shooting?” you dared to ask, though you thought you might know the answer.

The director glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. “You mean X-94? Agent, do try to refer to them by their title, Class, or number. Names are too sentimental for disciplined professionals like you.” 

“I apologize, sir.” He hadn’t answered your question.

“Oh, and Agent D-C-4,” he said to you in his precise tone. “This has convinced me that it is time to implement my next idea for the project. An assignment, albeit a brief one, with live data collection on the X agents.”

“Sir?” You hoped he didn’t mean what you thought he meant.

His lips twitched, an almost smile. You had the sinking feeling that he’d been stringing you along all day. “Officer Young is too valuable an asset, so we’ll be sending you along to manage the data collection. Starting tomorrow. That’s what you’ve wanted after the Sokcho brothel assigment, isn’t it? More field assignments?”

You saluted him because you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything in response.

# End of Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I finally finished Part 3. I know I really (REALLY) slowed down with posting during this part. The entire story is finished and I hope to post the rest in a timely manner with some motivation ^^


	28. Part 4: Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai steals away in the dead of night to a secret cave on the base.

# Part 4

## Prologue

In the dead of night, Kai limped slowly through the forest of Seorak base. He prayed he would be able to find the place he was looking for. He’d come once before during daytime, and that had been hard enough. Now, without his tablet, he fought down anxiety and tried to pay attention to the topography. He had followed a faint trail for the first kilometer or so, but then he had to bushwhack. Fortunately, the vegetation on the mountainous base was fairly sparse, and he found good footing on smooth stones during the steady climb.

He swung his headlamp around. So many of the boulders looked the same. But he remembered hugging the curve of this stony hill for a while last time, so he continued. If he had to, he could find his way back in the morning. 

He winced as he slipped past a gnarled tree that had grown close to the rock face. He tried not to dwell on the day’s events. He had important things to do now.

Finally, he reached a small clearing. He remembered the clearing, but which way was it from here? Confused, he turned slowly in a circle, carefully inspecting the trees with his headlamp. They all looked the same in the dark. 

He heard a rustling and his hand snapped to the gun holstered at his waist. But then he heard someone call out from not too far away. “This way, Kai.” He relaxed at the familiar, deep voice. 

Presently, the man came into view. He winced at the bright torch of Kai’s headlamp, raising his hand to cover his face. Kai switched it off. 

“Don’t worry, your eyes will adjust. I’ll lead you back,” said D.O.

“Thanks.” Kai adjusted the heavy pack on his shoulders, and set out after D.O. The path from here wound narrowly through rocky terrain. Kai tried to pick through the rocks carefully, but the leg that had been hit earlier today had other plans, and twisted underneath him when his boot caught in a small crevice. Kai cried out in pain and stumbled forward.

D.O. reached out to steady him. “You’re not walking normally. Are you OK?” 

“I’m fine,” Kai tried to reassure him, but D.O. pressed his hand more firmly into Kai’s shoulder. “No, you’re not. You’re a bit injured. You shouldn’t have come.”

“But this is when we agreed to meet, and I have no other way of contacting you.”

“That’s OK. I could wait until next week.”

Kai bit his tongue from saying more. About how D.O. might not last another week without supplies. Or how quickly things could change at the base in a week – what if Kai was deployed on an assignment again? He worried that his plan to hide D.O. right under SM's nose was not so foolproof as he had first thought, and inwardly cursed his own incompetence.

“Here,” said D.O. Kai blinked. D.O. was holding out his hand. “It’s safer this way.”

Feeling clumsy for once, Kai accepted D.O.’s outstretched hand. He felt profoundly silly, a deadly Combat class agent being gently led by the hand by this meek man - his former target, no less. But now wasn’t the time to argue. There were only so many hours before dawn. 

At D.O.’s hideout, a small cave-like opening in the rocks, Kai set down his pack and began pulling out the items inside. “I brought you several canteens of water. Some rations. A flashlight. First aid. Toilet paper.”

He saw D.O. smile in the dim moonlight. “Thank you, Kai. But I have most everything I need.” 

“Huh?”

“Over here.” D.O. beckoned Kai further into the cave, where D.O. turned on a small lamp. There, in the dim light, Kai saw a few books, an outdated tablet, and a 100-watt solar charger and storage cube. 

“Where… where did you get all this?” His face burned at the thought of forcing D.O. into a situation where the gentle agent had to steal.

“Relax,” said D.O. “I hiked to the town on the other side of Seorak. There happened to be an old man selling some old things to clear out his house.”

“But… how did you buy it? What if someone saw you?” 

Again, D.O. smiled. “I bartered. I helped him configure the new tablet he just bought. He’s not familiar with the new haptic feedback systems. Oh, and I made the text size larger for him, since he has trouble seeing the smaller characters.”

Kai sighed. It was just like D.O. to get a little too involved helping in others. “Someone could have seen you, D.O. It’s really dangerous for you to go into town like that.”

“Don’t worry, I think I have enough stuff now for a while. I can even cook with that charger, on a good day. I got some dried food a store was throwing out.”

Kai palmed his face. How many people had D.O. talked to? “Seriously, please don’t go there again. It’s _dangerous_. I’ll give you some cash if it’ll make it easier for you to be inconspicuous the next time you have to go.”

“Do you want some tea?” 

Kai stared at D.O. in disbelief. Of all the things… he was beginning to suspect D.O. had been to the town several times, maybe even made friends there. But D.O. was already pouring some tea into one of the empty canteens Kai had brought last time.

“Here you go,” said D.O. “Now, let me see the wounds that made you limp like that.”

Kai hesitated, but D.O. sat waiting patiently. After a moment, he rolled up the leg of his uniform, and D.O. made a tutting sound when he saw the shattered blood vessels, the black bruise blooming. 

“You didn’t go to medical?”

“What could they do? It’s just a bruise. Low priority.” D.O. sighed and reached for the first aid kit that Kai had brought. “No, D.O… that’s for you.” 

D.O. ignored him. “It just needs some compression. You can return the bandage once it’s better.” He gave Kai a reassuring smile, and Kai felt his resolve slip away. 

They were silent as D.O. worked. Kai was thankful for the other man’s tact, not asking him how the ugly wounds had been inflicted. He didn’t want to think about being forced to face down Sehun’s gun again. 

But here, in the quiet, distant cave, it was easy to forget about each day’s cruel work. D.O.’s deft hands tickled the fine hairs on Kai’s leg, and he tried not to look at D.O.’s pursed lips. He also tried not to think about how his heartbeat was probably pounding in D.O.’s enhanced senses.

“So,” he said, feigning nonchalance, “when did you become an expert on treating bruises?”

“You don’t remember? I was training to be an army medic before SM accepted me.”

Kai flushed again. He hadn’t paid much attention to D.O. when they first met, even wondering why this short-statured, gentle agent had been picked for the X Project. Of course, they’d all grown close over time, but Kai had always resonated more with playful Baekhyun and competitive Sehun. And then, of course, D.O., the quietest of them all, had shocked them – and the entire agency – by disappearing.

Kai sighed, and felt his muscles loosen as D.O. finished wrapping his shin and pressed the warm canteen against it. He’d come here to bring supplies and make sure D.O. was OK, but now he wasn’t sure who was taking care of whom.


	29. Snowdrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xiumin puts his abilities to the test on an assignment in the Arctic.

Xiumin felt his grasp of reality slipping away. This always happened when he came to the Arctic.

His head felt light, and he’d lost feeling in his hands and feet. The low sun traced a wide, lazy circle around his head as he trudged across the featureless, blinding landscape. If you were really far north, on ice, you might end up going the opposite direction you intended as the ice floes drifted swift and silent. It was so quiet here he could hear the blood pumping slowly in his veins.

He kind of liked losing himself out here. As much as his days on Seorak base were regimented with exercise, healthy eating, and drills with the military, his regular assignments to the Arctic last winter had made him understand the true impassive chaos of the natural world. Anything could happen, or nothing at all. As much as people tried to control their lives and their petty wars down in the inhabited regions, the Arctic could shatter any plan into a million pieces.

But so far, his assignment was proceeding smoothly. He’d been hiking through the tundra since before the pale sun came up. His destination was a remote cluster of Chinese research stations.

One foot in front of the other. That, at least, he would never forget how to do. Just when he felt himself forgetting the outline of himself, the core of what made him Xiumin, he spotted the tiny settlement on the horizon. The glaring sun was finally setting, and he allowed himself an extra breath of relief.

He was wearing camouflaged outerwear designed for the scrubby tundra, patches of white, gray, and moss green that dappled him against the early autumn landscape. Not that it was needed – the few scientists on site were surely hunkered down indoors, and the buildings mostly lacked windows for extra insulation.

The station had several satellite discs and just a few buildings. Intelligence had indicated it was mostly focused on meteorology and atmospheric physics, but at some point SM had picked up hints that China was interested in developing a mine out here. Now that the Arctic was melting so rapidly, ores that might have been too expensive to mine were tantalizingly within reach.

Not that Xiumin really cared what this particular station was for. He just had to find a creative way to sabotage it. Nothing that left a pattern, but ideally disruptive enough to make the Chinese funders question their investment. This time, he was going to sap their solar panels.

He hunkered down behind a rock, burrowing himself into a small depression in the snow, and waited until darkness fell. This was the part only he could do - quieting every cell within himself, withdrawing into a state, a place that was deep, remote, and safe from the extreme elements.

Once the sun dipped below the horizon, his eyes fluttered open. He scanned the area, then crept towards the station. The rows of solar panels that powered the station were neatly arranged some distance from the building. Crouching underneath them, he crept forward until he found the battery panel, the most expensive part of the micro-grid.

This was the part Chen had taught him how to do. He pulled out his toolkit, which was feather-light since he’d had to carry it so far, and carefully pried open the metal enclosing the battery. Then he pulled out a canister of a special insulating chemical one of SM’s subsidiaries had designed. It was virtually undetectable unless you knew exactly what you were looking for. He sprayed the stacked lithium batteries with it, going over them several times until the canister ran out. Over time, the chemical would degrade the batteries’ ability to store charge until they were useless.

On the way out, as snow was starting to fall, he kicked out some of the fragile photovoltaic panels to throw any repairman off the scent. That would decrease power output significantly tomorrow, and maybe knock out several of the sensitive instruments that were currently recording data around the station. For good measure, he also found their diesel cache and left the spigot leaking. That way, even if they made it to winter, their backup generators would be useless.

Xiumin grunted in satisfaction. This had gone much more smoothly than the time he’d had to kill a hapless scientist who caught him messing with an antennae. Making it look like an accident had cost him precious time.

Because this was the hardest part – getting back to the rendezvous point. Usually there was only a narrow window for retrieving him. These assignments were timed with snowstorms that would cover up his tracks and also likely take the blame for the minor disasters he’d caused, if not compounding them further.

Xiumin hoisted up his pack, which was slightly lighter now that he’d had a snack and used up all of the insulating chemical. But not much lighter. It took superhuman endurance and resistance to the cold to make this trek, which was of course why only Xiumin could do it. As the snowfall thickened, he trudged back the way he’d come.

His tablet still had plenty of battery, so he figured he could spare the extra charge to listen to music. The monotonous beats would help him get through the hike back without detaching too much from reality. He liked Chinese pop the best. It helped him keep his Mandarin language skills sharp.

Also, the songs reminded him of Luhan. Luhan was the one who introduced him to saccharine Chinese songs, mostly oldies from Taiwan and Hong Kong. This was back in the dorms at the academy, when they still had open internet access and loads of free time. Xiumin hummed into the Arctic silence, pushing forward one step at a time as the snow came down in thick, noiseless flurries.

It didn’t take long before his mind started to wander. But with the beat of the music, he was confident he could keep up his pace and course, so he let his mind drift away from the painfully cold confines of his body.

He found himself hoping that the power didn’t go out at the research station just yet. That could be dangerous for the scientists there in the middle of a snowstorm.

Dispassionately, he noted the irony of his previous thought. After all, what did the well-being of a few individual scientists weigh against SM’s mission of systematic sabotage of Chinese research stations?

And in this question, he found yet another level of inquiry. How did he, Xiumin, play a role in the global backslide in science and innovation that had plagued the world these past few years? He knew what he was doing was small in scale, yes, and targeted towards New Goryeo’s enemy, but in the chaos of complex systems, it could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The butterfly whose wingbeat wrought torrential storms across the world.

He shook his head to clear the snow accumulating on the brow of his snow goggles. These questions were far too heady for a simple Combat agent like himself. _Big questions aren’t part of the job, Xiumin_ , he thought to himself. _One foot in front of the other_.

He let his mind wander in a different direction. To the neatly organized attic of his memory. He browsed the collection of memories and pulled out one of his favorites.

_Luhan smiled brightly at him. “We’ll definitely be on assignments together. I knew you’d be C primary, but I can’t believe they chose that for me too!” They were sitting outside, enjoying the spring sun, coming down from the high of the assignment ceremony. The other cadets streamed around them, discussing the results happily, but Luhan and Xiumin had instinctively headed to a quiet spot together._

_Xiumin tried to match his beaming expression, but that didn’t come as naturally to him. “Of course they would, you tested well in Combat. But Espionage was your goal, wasn’t it?”_

_Luhan shrugged. “Yeah, but they probably just assigned me to E Class as my secondary because I have Chinese heritage. A useful asset.”_

_“Not true,” Xiumin insisted. “They didn’t assign Kris to the Espionage Class.”_

_Luhan’s eyes crinkled into little crescents at Xiumin’s comment, and Xiumin melted a little bit inside. Luhan draped his arm around Xiumin’s shoulders. “I’m excited, but… I hope we’ll still see each other a lot. I already feel nostalgic about the academy.”_

_“We haven’t even left yet,” Xiumin said, elbowing him playfully._

_“Ouch!” Luhan winced. “You’re too strong. I’ll need you to protect me on assignments,” he laughed._

_“I will,” said Xiumin, suddenly solemn. “I promise.”_

He didn’t remember what happened after that. They had gone their separate ways for a while, been on some larger-scale assignments together as rookies, but their friendship had grown distant. That’s how it was within the agency, which rotated agents around offices and bases and assignments with a rapidity designed to discourage attachments of any kind. Xiumin was used to that – it was how he had grown up, always on the move. But that was why he had been so surprised – and pleased – to see Luhan again at the beginning of the X Project. They were full-fledged agents by then, well beyond the sun-soaked, carefree academy days.

But it was here that Xiumin’s memories got even hazier. His immaculate organization of his memories had been thrown into disarray when it came to those months during and after the first phase of the X Project. _Dammit, Chanyeol_ , he thought. It was just like the tall, impulsive agent to make a mess of things in the real world, so Xiumin wasn’t surprised that when they’d had those strange memory entanglements, Chanyeol had flailed about haphazardly inside Xiumin’s brain.

But this confusion was why it was so important for him to stay on the Arctic project. Because he knew it was the one link to China. And the China team. And the memory of Luhan.

Not this time, but other times, he had painstakingly established that link. It had entailed convincing SM to let him pilot his own helicopter on some particularly high-risk assignments. Even more difficult, he had to persuade goodie-two-shoes Chen to assist him with some modifications of the location tracking systems on the helicopters. And it had also led to a few more murders than he would have preferred, but in the end, it was worth it. He had found them.

After trudging through the snow for several hours, Xiumin reached a scraggly patch of pine trees, searched around for a likely spot, and pulled out the tablet. Not the main one. Another one. He quickly typed out a message with the exact coordinates and a picture of the small tree where he was going to stash the tablet. Then he carefully wrapped the tablet in an insulating, signal-blocking pouch, and left it at the base of the tree. Part of him wanted to see if he could linger here until the morning, just to maybe see them, even if it meant he’d have to push himself to the extreme to reach the retrieval site in time.

Not yet. _Be patient_ , he told himself. _Luhan said it would take a long time_.

He thought his pack felt fractionally lighter now that the burner tablet was unloaded. It was probably just his imagination. He strapped on his snowshoes and pushed onwards.

He arrived at the retrieval location early. There was no cover here. The snowstorm had mostly passed, but the powdery snow had piled up quickly, and without the snowshoes, he would sink in up to his knees. He swayed unsteadily on his tired legs. One and a half hours until retrieval. He sank down into an uncomfortable crouch. His music had stopped playing long ago, but it would be too dangerous to take off his glove now to try and mess with his tablet. 

The powdery snow looked so inviting. He wished he didn’t have to do this, but he was reaching his limit. Sighing, he yanked his boots out of the snowshoes, stowed them back on his pack, and sank into the wet snow. He pulled his mask up over his goggles, made sure every inch of skin had at least two layers protecting it, then activated his tracking beacon.

He lay back into the snow. As he shut down his body, he wondered briefly how they usually retrieved him when this happened. He imagined a helicopter hovering above, a dark claw unspooling down towards him, then cradling him its grip, lifting him up, limbs limp as he was drawn heart-first into the sky. _How silly_ , he thought before he went dark, _it must be much more simple than that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proud of myself for updating more regularly :)


	30. The Target

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A team of agents retrieves Xiumin and then heads to New Joseon for an assassination assignment.

The sudden cold bit into the narrow band of exposed skin on your face. The bridge of your nose felt like it was being bludgeoned by an ice cube. Clumsily, you slid out of the helicopter and dropped into the deep snow. Ahead of you, Sehun and Mark were already bundling Xiumin’s body onto a stretcher. He had been under several inches of snow when you arrived, beacon clutched at his chest like a buried mummy with a sacred object. 

“Be careful not to move him too much!” you called to them. You had been assigned with monitoring him as he came out of his hibernation state, and the last thing you wanted was that skittish rookie Mark to bonk him on the head and mess up the data. They were agents, not paramedics, after all. You glanced at your tablet, which had started sending biometric data as soon as you were within range of X-99. His readings still seemed to be the same since this unit had found him and maneuvered the helicopter down – unbelievable, yes, but the same. 

You moved out of the way for the agents bearing their precious cargo, loading him into the hold. Even through the whirling snow, you could see the dark voids of the stealth panels that now partially lined the exterior of this helicopter. How quickly the fruits of your labor had been put to use for SM.

Back inside the helicopter, you strapped yourself in next to Sehun. Xiumin’s stretcher was secured next to you.

“Ready for takeoff?” shouted Suho from the cockpit. He was sharing piloting duties with an older agent, C-A-52, who went by the nickname Hyo and had a reputation for flawless execution of her many assignments. Technically she was an officer now, but preferred to continue to do field assignments, and had the necessary security clearance to work with X Agents. 

“Ready,” you called back. Sehun made a noise of assent. His eyes were closed. He had hardly talked on the flight to the tiny Japanese base where you all had broken off from a larger group and switched to the long-range helicopter. You thought he might be motion sick, or tired, or maybe both. His arm was still heavily bandaged underneath the winterized uniform. You were shocked that the director had sent him on this assignment when he was still recovering from the last one. But there was no sympathy in that shadowy face projected from Shin-Seoul, where the director had returned after the test with X-88.

You had spent the whole way here still feeling resentful of Suho, not to mention fearful that he might sacrifice Sehun – or the lot of you – for the sake of completing the assignment. But the assignment details had specified that Hyo was acting leader of this unit, to be taken over by Xiumin once he was ready. So far, Suho had said almost nothing, just focused on piloting. You were glad for that, since it had been a bumpy ride. 

Once you all took off and the helicopter had stopped swaying precariously, you turned your attention to Xiumin. Gently, and awkwardly, because you had to lean over him from your seat, you unzipped his hood and pulled the various gear off – hat, headband, goggles. Gingerly, you placed the fitted cap loaded with sensors over his head. 

Then you paused, somewhat at a loss. You needed to get a smart band around his arm, but without taking off his coat entirely, it would be tricky. You settled on pulling the thick coat down on one side of his body, gently working his arm out. Mark looked on with curiosity, and even Sehun opened one eye to watch you. You suddenly felt very warm inside the frigid cabin. You pushed up Xiumin’s sleeves – god, why was there so much clothing – and finally managed to wiggle the band on. You pressed a button to activate it and breathed a sigh of relief as you saw the blood pressure monitor indicate it had a good reading.

And of course, you’d saved the most difficult part for last. You pulled out the web of EKG sensors and hastily shoved it down the collar of Xiumin’s many layers of shirts. As you blindly arranged the sensors across his chest as best you could, Sehun interrupted. 

“Hey, do you need help?”

You swatted his arm away. “I can do it.” You weren’t cadets at the academy anymore.

“Yeah, but…” 

“What? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Sehun stared at you.

“No, not like… just, he was teaching me some stuff… I mean, we were training together, boxing at the base…”

You trailed off as you noticed Mark snickering in the seat across from you. Who had even let the rookie join this assignment? Oh right, he was Director Lee’s special protégé. You fixed him with a glare and got back to work.

****

A few hours later, Xiumin woke up. It was just like when you had seen him back in the testing room at the base. He sat up with a sudden sigh, a body come back to life. The deathly pallor of his cheeks was slowly replaced by a healthy glow as he took in the sight of the helicopter cabin around him. The other agents were asleep now, but you were awake, quietly monitoring Xiumin’s data and making notes that you thought Officer Young or the director might find interesting. Like how his heart rate had increased linearly back to normal, but the blood pressure had been more of an exponential recovery.

“How are you feeling?” you asked him. 

He took a deep breath. He still looked groggy, hair standing on end and eyes unfocused. Of course, he’d been out for much longer than any test. “Tired.”

“Is it like sleeping?” He stared at you blankly for a few moments. “It’s OK,” you offered. “We’re allowed to talk about this now. That’s why I’m here on this assignment.”

“I know.” He slowly lifted his hands up. You’d taken his gloves off earlier. He flexed his fingers, rubbed the warmth back into them. “And it’s not like sleeping. I don’t dream.”

That lined up with the neurological readings. Before you could ask him more questions, Sehun, who was apparently still awake, spoke. “Are you going to be able to fight, if necessary, when we get there?”

“Yes.”

You cut back in, since you were the one who was supposed to be asking questions anyway. “How long do you think it will take for you to feel 100% normal?”

Xiumin thought for a second. He was still breathing disconcertingly slowly, but seemed otherwise fine. “I’d give it… maybe five more minutes.” 

Your eyes widened. You quickly turned your attention to your tablet, which showed a feed of the various readings. Indeed, everything was almost stable again. You dove into the numbers, half-listening as Sehun reviewed the assignment details with the other agents.

****

For the next few hours on the helicopter, you tried to sleep, to no avail – your nervousness grew as you approached the destination. The assignment was a run-of-the-mill assassination, but for you, the first in quite a while. Given your role, you knew personal risk to you was low, but there were always a million uncertainties. Probability-wise, there was significant risk to the agents in the forward assault, which Xiumin was leading. Then of course there was the very small but non-zero risk that you all would somehow get caught by New Joseon authorities, which meant eventual but certain execution. You tried not to think about that. SM had never lost any field agents to capture, and there were rumors that New Joseon police even turned a blind eye to occasional raids out of fear of retribution from the elite agency.

You swiped through images of the target’s house on your tablet. It was a modernist, glittering estate built into a hillside. Fortunately, it was a remote location, several kilometers from the nearest city, which minimized the risk of collateral damage or detection. Maybe that was why SM had jumped at the contract. Easy, as New Joseon raids went. The architect’s ubiquitous use of glass concerned you though. The glass panes would be either bulletproof or prone to shattering loudly into a million sharp pieces, neither of which were convenient. 

The stealth helicopter landed in a clearing some distance away from the house, on the other side of the rolling hills. The forward-looking infrared scan had indicated there was no one nearby. 

You, Sehun, Xiumin, and Hyo began the nighttime hike to the house. Suho and Mark stayed behind to guard the helicopter and refuel the hybrid engine. Strangely, you felt calmer on the ground, with the two X agents and the seasoned Combat agent leading the way. You pulled your tablet out to check Xiumin’s data again. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all.

It took about half an hour to reach the vantage point that had been mapped out for you all. From your pack, you pulled out binoculars and surveyed the house. The transparent glass was actually to your tactical advantage now, though there were privacy screens covering inner rooms. “There are two guards outside the gate. Can’t see anyone inside the house,” you said.

“Thermal scan shows three people,” whispered Hyo, holding her FLIR-embedded tablet up. She grabbed the binoculars from you. “There must be a basement or something,” she said.

Xiumin sighed. “D-C-4, can you access the target’s tablet cam?” 

“Wait,” said Sehun. “I thought she was just here for data collection.” 

“She’s D Class. Might as well put it to use,” replied Xiumin. Sehun was quiet, yielding to the older agent and designated unit leader, as you pulled up the program on your tablet, glad to be useful and not just an obnoxious scientist running tests on them. Before you had left for this assignment, you had downloaded data from an SM Espionage agent who had installed a back door on the target’s tablet some time ago. You quickly found a snippet of the program that would allow you to access different apps. 

Once you were able to get the camera working, the other agents huddled around your tablet. 

“Wow, a ceiling,” remarked Sehun dryly. 

“Is there audio?” asked Xiumin, ignoring him. 

You turned up the volume, and heard low, garbled voices. “They must be far away from the tablet,” you sighed in frustration.

“Wait, they’re coming closer,” said Hyo.

All of a sudden, the ceiling jerked away, revealing a spacious living room area. The walls were cement. “Basement,” Hyo whispered. 

“ _... details about the shipment tomorrow,_ ” said a voice in clipped Korean that nevertheless came through loud and clear. You turned the volume down a little bit. Someone responded from across the room, and you caught snippets of highly formal speech. 

“ _… goodnight, sir._ ” 

“Flip the camera,” said Xiumin. You complied, and the four of you caught a glimpse of a blonde beard, heavy jowls, and blue eyes before the target set his tablet down. “Interesting,” he said. “A _baeg-in_ in New Joseon.” You saw Sehun’s face harden. 

Hyo looked at the thermal scan on her tablet again. “They’re moving to what looks like another room, still in the basement area. But there’s still someone staying near the target.”

“Maybe another guard,” Xiumin said. “Easy enough. Intelligence indicated no electronic security systems. Proceed as planned.”

The four of you continued closer to the house. You were still concealed under the cover of the trees, looking down towards a winding road that led through the hills. On the other side of the road were the gates to the house, where two guards were sitting on stools. One was smoking a cigarette, the other playing on his tablet. 

Sehun scowled. “Why do they bother sending us out here for these small fries?”

“Just do your job, agent,” said Xiumin coolly. Maybe he, like you, felt remorse for taking out these hapless guards. 

“Wait, sorry, I have to initiate the tests before he begins,” you said hesitantly. Xiumin just waved his hand in permission. As Sehun was setting up his sniper rifle, you pulled out the monitoring equipment. You still didn’t know what his ability was, but you figured it had to do with his marksmanship, given the assignments SM had been giving him. 

Once Sehun had set up his tripod, he straightened up, still favoring his injured arm. 

“Sehun, can you…” 

You trailed off when he glared at you, then stiffly, begrudgingly lowered his head so you could fit the sensor cap on. You attached the electrodes at his temples and checked to make sure the readings were coming in.

“OK, that’s it,” you said.

Xiumin drew himself up. “All agents ready?”

“Ready,” you all replied.

“Earpieces on?”

“On.”

“Proceed as planned.” He and Hyo checked their armor and donned their helmets, then carefully made their way through the vegetation down towards the house. You and Sehun crouched, waiting for the signal.


End file.
